


Karkat: be swept off your feet

by LaughingStones



Series: Cavernstuck [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Brief Pale Non-con, But even in an AU Sufferer still had it rough, Cavernstuck, Illustrated now I've remembered I drew a picture, M/M, Mention of several ancestors, Open magma is an open invitation to trouble, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Politics, So much pale GamKar, Some of whom have different titles, Splick/Spoonerize this one's for you, Warning for description of Sufferer's torture etc., You magnificent creature, but what do you expect when you pile it up to worship Caliborn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingStones/pseuds/LaughingStones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the whole mess with the angels, Karkat really needs someone to talk to.   Too bad he doesn't have a moirail or anything.</p><p>Fortunately, he finds there's nothing like getting involved in the affairs of greater demons to put other troubles right out of his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That Business from Two Sweeps Back

**Author's Note:**

> I owe the seed of this series to Askerian, but this chapter specifically toSpoonerizeSwiftness, who got me hooked so hardcore on GamKar that I went and wrote this. And then she beta'd it, because she is an angel. Much of this fic was inspired by all of hers.
> 
> Feferi's gem-color corrected to rubellite, which is a beautiful purply-red and exactly right for her.
> 
> Edit 6/17: I'm sorry, guys. I don't know what I was thinking, leaving this on a cliffhanger. I have never been able to figure out how to write the next part, and I may as well admit it's not going to happen. It's possible that I'll eventually manage to write up a summary of what the third chapter would've been, but it hasn't happened yet.

Karkat had come back Down because he needed some space to think, well away from angels of any color and one persistent tealblooded demon. He wandered aimlessly until the relatively safe areas for lesser demons were far behind him, the expansive caverns of the highbloods looming ahead, and then he knew who he was looking for and stopped dead in the passageway, swearing louder than was wise in this place.

No, this was a stupid idea, he was a shitpanned curse-sucker to have thought of it, and he was turning around right now to go back where sane lowbloods stayed -

Look at that, the passage was blocked by horns and wings.

Despite being younger, the three demons were already larger, had horns far longer and sharper than Karkat's would ever be, and their well-kept wings flicked and refolded, restless. They wore formal dress, decked out in gems and finery that made Karkat feel scruffy and tattered. One had peridot green scale patterns on his grey wings, the same shade that was coming into his eyes, one had deep sapphire, and the third wasn't showing color either place yet. The blueblood tossed her head and laughed, the sound less amusement than an attempt to intimidate. Karkat platonically hated Vriska, but even she couldn't be more obnoxious than this.

"Look at the little imp that wandered out to play with us!" the blue said, and elbowed her green companion in the ribs. "You think there'll be anything left if we tap him?"

"Doesn't look it," he said, eyes lingering over Karkat's shoulders where no wings showed. "I think he'd just shrivel up and blow away."

"Might still be good for a spell or two," the youngest one put in, obviously hoping for leftovers, and Karkat curled his lip in contempt.

"What," he snapped, "is the process of stealing maja from lowbloods so tail-blisteringly dangerous now that you have to do it in groups? Scrape together your pathetic scraps of courage from whatever dank, shitty corner you left them in and lie in wait until one of us steps into the open where you can all safely team up to drain him? That's very impressive, I am bowled over with awe at your obvious highblood superiority, you crackpanned, tailsucking, tangle-winged imp-fuckers."

The blueblood mantled her wings and snarled, one hand lashing out for his arm as Karkat leapt backwards to avoid it. "You ground-crawling little shitblood, I'll suck you dry and spit you out - "

"Yeah, what makes you think you can talk to us that way?" the youngest said, and Karkat briefly thought what Terezi or her feathery douchebag would have to say about the sub-par thug act. Unoriginal or not, thug-boy and the green did a fine job flanking the blue as she stalked forward. Karkat backed up again and felt the air of the vast cavern opening up around him. His tail flicked, quick and twitchy. There was no room to get past them into the passage, and he didn't dare turn his back to find another way out, but anyone could be in all that space behind him. His wing scars prickled. Shit, shit -

The blueblood lunged again and Karkat tried to dodge to the side, but the green cut him off, backing him up again. Grey-green eyes narrowed in satisfaction, then widened, their gaze flicking up over Karkat's head.

"Ho, Deiset," said a lazy voice behind him, "what'd you bring to us?"

Instinct whirled Karkat around before he could catch himself. She was iolite purple, looming over him with that deceptively mild look on her painted features. He automatically checked the paint pattern to see which sacred rite she was ready for and his bloodpusher sank as he identified it as a fire dance. Those fell under the patronage of Caliborn, not Calliope. She wouldn't be reluctant to witness violence in this phase, might even join in for the fun of it.

Hard hands seized his shoulders from behind and he jerked, tried to wrench away and flinched as claws dug into flesh. "Just a little tidbit," growled the blue, who was holding him. "Not sure he's enough for much."

"Wingless, he's probably depleted to start with," the green added.

"Mm," said the purple, and then her eyes fixed on his shoulders and dilated. He could feel the trails of wet warmth trickling down his skin from the blueblood's claws and cursed past him for getting him into this. "In that pretty fire-color, even a morsel's worth the trouble. Tap him."

"Makara," Karkat rapped out, and saw her startle. He hadn't intended to do this, it had been a stupid, masochistic impulse in the first place, which was why he'd always decided against it before now, but he had no choice at this point. He was not going to be drained, fuck that noise, he wouldn't be able to move for days and cast for even longer, he wouldn't be able to get word to - to anyone where he was and what had happened. "I came here to see Gamzee Makara."

The hands on his shoulders fell away.

"Who the fuck is - " started the young demon behind him.

"How many Makaras you know, asshole?" one of the others hissed, cutting him off. "There's only two!"

"How do you know that high name?" the purple said, tail lashing, and the harmonics of her voice rasped and sang on Karkat's nerves.

"He gave it to me," he growled. "How else?"

"Why would the Highest - " the green scoffed, and the purple cut him off.

"Hah! Now I think me, I do recall how some sweeps ago, a lowblood was said to get himself in a sight of trouble in the outskirts - "

Hunting ghouls through empty passages by himself, like an idiot, looking up as the last of them fled to see a group of ogres coming toward him like walking cliffs. His sickles broke, his claws splintered against their hides and his spells rolled off them unnoticed, they caught him by the wings - pain pain _pain_ -

" - and the Highest, for the grace of sweet Calliope's eyes, came upon him in the struggle and saved his miserable hide."

A roaring in his ears as the ogres dropped him on the stone, a roar that grew into a snarling howl as he lay shivering in his own disgusting blood, waiting to die, and a storm of rage swept past him with a thunder-crack of leathery wings. When he gathered the wits and ability to raise his head a little, the ogres were chunks of rock and dust on the ground.

"Naught was said that I recall of his blood being the color of molten stone."

Sweeps ago, he thought dizzily, that was over two sweeps ago. A very long time, and almost none at all. He shook the memories off, steeled himself.

"So take me to him," he said impatiently, "and if he won't see me, he'll probably let you drain me as my penalty for disturbing him, right?" His digestive sack twisted as he said it. Gamz - the Highest wouldn't prey on lowbloods himself, he was almost sure, and wouldn't let anyone around him do it if Calliope was ascendant, but when Caliborn was rising...

"And I would indeed, but that he'll see no one now, in preparation for the dance." She studied him for a moment, eyes half-lidded, branching horns tipped to one side. "So you'll watch the dance, and be ready for his judgement afterwards. Come, flame-blood."

"What?   No, I don't - " Karkat was unsurprised but still vastly pissed off by the spell-bond that wrapped around his neck and tugged him after her. Snarling, he clawed at it, tearing at the weave of the spell with sharp little curving blades of power, but a purple had far more maja to spare than a wing-ripped mutantblood, and her binding twined and tangled around his blades until it consumed them. He stumbled after her, growling. The blueblood and her two companions followed at a distance.

"I don't fucking attend ceremonies anymore! Get this snake-fucking thing off and I'll come see him sometime he's not busy!"

She snarled at him over her shoulder. "You'll speak of the Double God with respect or lose your impious tongue. You asked to see the Highest and so you shall, filthy little unconsecrated heretic that you are, and attend the dance that you be a slightest bit more worthy of his attention afterwards."

Karkat let out a rattling hiss and ground his teeth, narrowly resisting the temptation to call her a snake-fucker, but that probably would get him drained - or his tongue ripped out. "Fine, whatever. Take this off! I may be wing-ripped, but my legs are completely fucking functional and I don't need a fucking leash!"

"Maybe you'd walk and maybe you'd flee. And if you came along, after the dance maybe you'd be there and maybe you wouldn't. And maybe the highest below them as swims in earthblood will want to see his little rescue waiting there for him, and be none too happy with any as let him wander off again."

Seething, Karkat swore at her in a steady torrent under his breath, but grimly kept up with her long-legged stride. They wound through the maze of subterrane until they reached one of the central caverns, public domain. Karkat cast a wistful glance at the ranks of hundreds of lowbloods perched on ledges and standing on the ground, surrounding one half of the vast central circle where the ceremonies took place. In their midst, the few adults present seemed larger than life, wings and thoraxes rising well above the rest.

These days on the rare occasion he did attend, he stood with his back to a wall, behind the rest of the crowd and out of everyone's line of view. Of course, that meant he had no view at all himself, but it wasn't like he missed it. Not making himself into a target was more important than missing a few flashy dance moves or the ritual acting out of story cycles.

Speaking of which, he was now even more painfully aware of how unkempt he must look. No matter where he stood, people were going to notice that his pants were ragged and he had no shirt or jewelry. The shirt, which he never wore, (made to wrap or tie around wings that weren't there and he'd rather go without and shove the scars in people's faces than look like he was hiding them), wasn't so much an issue as the jewelry. Even the lowliest folk wore strings of bone beads and cheap bangles; anything less at ritual smacked of disrespect or even heresy, which was bad for your health if anyone higher up noticed.

He didn't expect his captor to let him try to blend into the back of the crowd, but then she led him across the other side, up through the glittering rows of highbloods to the very front, just outside the circle. And anchored his leash there.

"You have got to be fucking joking!" he hissed. Offended and angry murmurs were rising from the nearer part of the huge crowd of greater demons at his back, and across the circle lesser folk were pointing and craning, wings flapping as some took to the air for a better view. He felt like a small, scrawny herdbeast staked out for bait. "You can't just leave me here, they'll eat me alive, and then what will he say to you?!"

"They won't touch you, as it seems you're mine, and little enough he'll have to say but thanks or no."

She turned on her heel and stepped into the circle, wings spreading as she joined the ring of purples that stood in the center, waiting. She was one of the taller ones, probably only a little younger than Karkat, maybe just under nine sweeps. The youngest looked to be about six and a half, and even under his facepaint, visibly overexcited to be performing in public. Karkat knew there were two or three adult purples in the colony besides the elder Makara, but they didn't perform the rituals with the younger set.

Bloodpusher in his throat, Karkat listened to disgruntled voices sneer and speculate behind him. He couldn't help but feel dangerously exposed, on display like this after so long keeping himself to himself. Every muscle in his back was tense in preparation for claws or a touch, the first preliminary to draining him while he couldn't escape or fight back. His tail pressed against one leg, trying to be safely inconspicuous. Past him had gotten him into this and deserved every second of it; too bad it was current him who had to live through it.

"Karkitty!" hissed a familiar voice, and Karkat nearly sprained something trying to twist around. Just within his peripheral vision, Nepeta shoved to the front of the crowd, dragging Equius behind her. "Are you all right? Did that dancinerator hurt you? Don't worry, the fur-some huntress will purr-tect you!" She was decked out in emeralds and silver over her festival wear, and even Equius had on his titanium and diamond wrist cuffs. Karkat felt his cheeks heat and wished he could turn more to face her. He'd still be disgracefully dressed, but at least she wouldn't be face to shoulderblades with his ugly-ass scars.

"No, I'm fucking fine," he muttered back, "just highblood fuckassery."

"This is a most unseemly time for personal conversations, Nepeta," Equius said sternly. "The ceremony is about to begin, and it behooves us to be silent in contemplation."

"Karkat is _tied up_ , Equius! Can you break that?"

Equius made an unsettled sort of snorting noise and his wings mantled, knocking another blueblood aside with a startled growl. "Even if I could, I would not break the spell of a highblood. The lowblood will simply have to await his high purpose becoming clear."

"Equius, fur goodness sake!" Nepeta's tail lashed. "He could be in pawful trouble!"

The ring of purples started to stamp in rhythm and the crowd began falling silent. To Karkat's relief, the moirails' hushed argument subsided with one last whisper to him from Nepeta.

"Don't worry, we'll stay near you!"

The Highest emerged.

He was dressed in brightly beaded pants, gauzy scarves floating at his waist, bare-chested and bare-armed but for the heavy gold bands, chains, and rings that glittered with every move. Amethyst, pink ruby, iolite and sapphire glowed in the light, spiraled up his horns and down his tail and winked against his chest. His face was painted for the fire dance, far more elaborately than the pattern the other purples wore, and his eyes were distant with concentration.

He stepped into the circle and spread his wings with a snap. The dance began.

Karkat quickly lost himself in the swirl of movement, the pounding rhythm of feet against stone, hands drumming on chests, arms, thighs. When the dancers started the call and response with the audience, Karkat shouted back with the rest of them. The blues and greens at his back started up a chant in time with the dance and the shouts, a driving, rising force of sound that echoed off the cavern ceiling high above them.

"Ho-ah!" the dancers called.

" _Hoi!_ " the crowd yelled back.

"Hah!"

"Hey- _hah!_ "

The Highest was in the air above the circle, whirling, spinning, diving and rising up again. Maja glittered around him as he took the power being raised and channeled it into a complex net of spellwork that stretched across the cavern and touched every person in it. Karkat drew a deep breath as it took hold, feeling strength and frenetic energy sweeping through him, a fierce pride and joy in being one of his people, no matter how low.

He'd forgotten how good it felt to attend these rituals, how good it was to feel a part of something for once. His voice mingled with the massed shouts, his feet kept time against the stone with hundreds of other feet, and even the spell-bond that held him stiller than he wanted to be was only a vague irritation.

Gamz - the Highest was flying higher now, the ring of dancers widening, moving out to the edge of the circle. Karkat could see the spark and haze of another spell rising, this one formed with intent by all the purples at once. It spread over the center of the circle and held there and all the dancers spun to face out, bowed their heads and flung out their arms with a shout.

The crowd fell silent in the next beat and stilled, waiting. Karkat distantly realized he was holding his breath.

The stone floor in the center of the circle dissolved. A wave of heat and red-orange light emerged, and the crowd sighed and hummed. From high above, the Highest let out a call on one sustained note in a deep, rumbling sound that made the air tremble.

A high, sweet voice answered from the hole in the floor, sang for a line or two alone, and was joined by a chorus of others in eerie harmony. Karkat shivered and flicked his tail in lieu of rustling wings like everyone else.

The Highest called again, and the fiery light brightened as a figure rose into view, clothed in fire and smoke with a cloak of shadow. He had zigzagging horns but no wings and no tail, and his toes were very long and webbed. A representative, and not the one most high herself. Karkat was disappointed even though he knew better. The Rubelliteblood only joined in rituals a few times a sweep, and a simple fire dance did not require her presence, as pan-numbingly impressive as it would be.

"Thou of flame and stone," the Highest said, loud enough to carry across the cavern, "we call thee forth on this night to celebrate thy origin. My most honored sister, we ask thy blessing for our revelry. Well, motherfucker," he added in a lower tone, "she coming up to get this bitchtits party started?"

Karkat heard Equius mutter "Oh dear," behind him, and thought he saw one of the purple dancers wince. Personally, he thought it was amazing that Ga - that he had made it through this much of the ritual before saying something tail-curlingly embarrassing.

"Thou of stone and air," the representative answered formally, "thy sister of the earth's blood rejoices wwith thee, and gladly sends me to convvey her blessing unto thee. Receivve it, and be joyous." He flung his arms up and a vast spell rose off him and twined through the air. Instead of settling over the heads of the crowd, it attached itself to the walls and ceiling of the cavern, rolling down across the floor. The audience shifted and sighed as it passed under their feet, and Karkat felt the claw marks in his shoulders heal, but he wasn't sure what else it was doing. His throat went odd and his eyes prickled, he had to blink hastily and his breath was catching in his chest. It felt like hearing words said in his ear that he'd wished for ever since he could remember. His lips wanted to stretch wide and tremble at the same time. He felt strange and delicate and grateful, and he had to swallow hard and shake his head quickly to control his expression.

"An' ta answwer your question," the representative was saying in a low voice, "a course Peixes ain't comin' up here, it is wway too fuckin' cold still. It's too cold for me, she'd freeze her flamin' fins off. Wwe done yet?"

The Highest landed in front of him, close enough that his hair and scarves fluttered in the updraft of heat from the hole. "Yeah, motherfucker, we're all up and finished." He held out a jeweled fist and the flame-dweller bumped it with one just as glittering, then turned and dove back under the floor.

The dancers began to stamp and clap in rhythm again. The audience picked it up. The Highest started to chant and the rest of the purples joined in as the floor slowly sealed over again. One by one they took to the air, doing a weaving three-dimensional dance with the Highest in the center grounding the pattern.

Behind Karkat, the blues and greens were chanting to an offset rhythm that fell into a swaying syncopation against the purple chant. Across the circle, bronzes and cinnabars and sulphers were moving on the ledges, doing the stomp-dances Karkat had learned before his wings were big enough to fly. Everyone was whirling and chanting and clapping, and the binding at his neck was definitely an issue, but Karkat stomped and clapped and moved as much as he could anyway.

By the time streamers of golden fire-maja were jumping from hand to hand at the climax of the ritual, Karkat's hands and feet were sore, his throat felt raw, and he found himself wondering if angels could possibly have anything as awesome as this. He held up a hand to catch the next leap of flame, felt it prickle and sing in his claws and across his skin, and flung it back into the crowd.

The purples ended their chant with a shout, the rest of the highbloods finished on the next beat like an answer, and a vast cheer went up as the crowd yelled appreciation. Karkat was grinning like a snarl, fierce and alive and glad, and when Nepeta almost strangled him against the spell-bond with a tackle-hug, he cursed her out and hugged awkwardly back.

Pulling back, she gave him a serious look and his nerves began to creep in again. "Karkitty, are you in trouble?" she said over the noise. "Should the huntress pawrsuade her fur-riend to break this spell?"

"Yeah, sure, if you can get his thick fingers out of his hear ducts. I have no idea how past-me thought any of this was a good idea. I ran into a bunch of highblood fuckasses who decided stopping to drain a lowblood on the way to ritual was a great fucking plan, so I namedropped to get them to fuck off, and they decided if I wanted to see the Highest they should fucking tie me down here. Because I'm sure if he did want to see me, he'd be really fucking thrilled about that."

She stared and broke into a smile. "You're finally going to see him? That's so romantic!"

"Surely it is unlikely that the highblood would remember you," Equius said, and Nepeta glared at him.

"Equius, just because you don't ship it doesn't mean it catnot happen!" She turned back to Karkat. "...Do you think he will?"

His bloodpusher twisted. "Of course not, why would he? But it's not like I have a fucking choice now anyway." The purple who'd put him here was watching from across the circle. Nepeta would never convince Equius to be helpful under that steady gaze. He forced himself to go on, "Anyway, even if he doesn't he'll probably take this fucking leash off at least, he doesn't like highbloods draining people, so he wouldn't leave me at their mercy." I think, he thought, and bit the words off.

Nepeta chewed on her lip, frowning at him, and then from behind them Equius rumbled, "Highblood," and Karkat's head jerked up. He expected to see the purple coming over who'd left him tied here like a pet barkbeast.

Gam - the Highest towered over them, frowning vaguely instead of wearing his usual dreamy smile. Karkat stopped breathing. The Highest ignored Nepeta and Equius, staring down at Karkat in a way that made the muscles under his wing scars ripple nervously.

"You shouldn't all to be bound at a sacred ritual, my brother. What motherfucker let this fine idea out his thinkpan?"

Karkat barely kept from apologizing, pulse beating in his throat and skin prickling hot and cold. It wasn't like they had any sort of relationship, no matter what his stupid imagination had to say, but he didn't know what he'd do if Gamz - no, the Highest - no, _Gamzee_ , was mad at him. He swallowed and couldn't seem to speak, couldn't find what to say.

Frowning more deeply, the Highest leaned down to peer into his face. Karkat glared back, refusing to look down.

For a second, startlement flashed in his eyes and it looked like he stopped breathing. Then, "I know you," he said softly.

Karkat closed his eyes and shakily let his breath out, then gasped and almost choked when he felt the leash around his neck fray and dissolve.

"But we'll need to get our chat on somewhere else, my fine nubby-horned brother."

Karkat opened his eyes to growl, "Fuck off about the horn _aaaahhh!_ "

Arms gripping like steel bands, powerful wings flapping hard, the Highest was already arrowing through the air with Karkat held against his chest. Karkat grabbed for his shoulders and held on, pusher thundering.

He already knew it was different being carried than flying himself, but he hadn't quite realized that part of the difference he'd felt before was actually between how angels flew and how demons did. Being carried by John or Jade, (or gog forbid, Jake or Roxy, he wasn't sure which was more crackpanned), was moving lightly, swooping and curving to make him shriek, landing with barely a bump because their magic worked differently too (and was invisible to him, the fuckers).

Demons flew fast and straight, and Karkat was breathless with forgotten speed and exhilaration as they swept down corridors and through halls like a gale wind. They blew through a set of doors and landed, the Highest flaring his wings barely enough to brake, absorbing the shock of feet slamming into stone with an easy, absent flex.

The chamber was big, spacious enough for a small meeting hall, though it was clear by the piles of clothes and clubs and random items spread carelessly across the floor and every flat surface that it was a greater demon's living block. A set of panpipes leaned against the wall next to a tumble of drums and bright little jars of paint, one of which had spilled across the floor. Paintings spread across the rock walls showing scenes from the holy tales, historical figures, even what looked like sketched visual jokes. The place was a fantastic, rich and varied mess. How did this idiot not have someone picking up after him, if he couldn't do it himself?

Shaking the thought away, Karkat drew a long breath and gathered himself to be put down, but it didn't seem to be happening. He looked up, scowling instinctively, to find deep purple eyes fixed on his face. Ga - the Highest was just standing there staring down at him, not seeming to notice that he was still cradling Karkat like a jadeblood with a new-hatched imp.

"I got this thought on me that I know you," he murmured, almost to himself, "but I cannot get my knowing as to how."

Karkat looked away because it was getting awkward, here, just lying in another demon's arms as they stared into each other's eyes like some fated serendipitous encounter. He could feel himself blushing, which was just _enough_ , this was stupid. "You saved me," he blurted out, and bit his tongue. Way to play into that over-romantic notion, yes, his mental feet were clearly on the ground and not up on some high imaginary spire as he papped his own face to the thought of himself as Juleti to a Makara Romeon. He cleared his throat and glared up.

"From ogres," he clarified. "I was out hunting ghouls and they caught me. You came along - I don't know what you were doing in a back tunnel on the outskirts - and you killed them. C-carried me back home. Cast some kind of spell that stopped the bleeding before you left."

Rock-steady arms, a subvocal growl that softened to a soothing, deep-chested hum, the wash of someone else's maja over his skin, easing away the burning pain in his back. The knowledge that he would live, that someone cared enough to ensure it with their own hands.

...Waking up alone in his tiny respite block.

The Highest was staring down at him, frowning cool and still. It was not a comforting expression. If he didn't believe it, would he be angry, assume Karkat was here under false pretenses?

Something shifted in his face, went close and intent. "You," he whispered, gaze flickering up to Karkat's horns and down to his eyes again, glancing across his shoulders and chest at the thin trails of dried blood there. "This blood on your skin, brother, it's all to being the miracle bright color of metal and stone heated to get its flow on. Magma, my fine motherfucker, it's in your eyes, up in your veins, making you a holy fucking being."

Karkat's mouth was dry and he couldn't look away. Wasn't this heresy? But as the head of every rite and ritual now the elder Makara was asleep, he wouldn't get something like this wrong, would he?

It was Gamzee. He totally would. Maybe he'd started licking brimstone again, like he'd done back when he was an imp.

Those eyes were still boring a hole through the back of his pan-case. "They took your wings," the Highest said, barely above a whisper, and Karkat flinched before he realized. He _remembered_ \- _!_ "Those twisted sacrilegious profanations of all that is right and whole, those motherfucking piles of walking shit ripped your beautiful wings off, bro, and left you bleeding all your shining magma blood across the stone. And so I smashed them to the ground, that they never might so profane the beauty of the world again. And I did what I could for you."

"I didn't think you'd remember," Karkat said hoarsely. He couldn't seem to get a full breath, his thorax felt strange and his windchute was all tight and hot.

The Highest gave him a crooked smile, fangs gleaming. "I up and get my memory on at times," he said in a more normal tone of voice, and finally set Karkat on his feet, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. Turning away, he started to pull off the loads of precious metal and stones he wore, tossing golden chains and bands of gems casually onto a nearby pile of embroidered cloth on the floor.

Karkat swallowed. This was getting intimate. "I - some of it's a little blurry, so I - don't know if I ever gave you my name. You gave me yours." _My brother, think on this: if any other wants to do you harm, they will have to come through Gamzee fucking Makara first._

"You did not up and do that," the Highest said, untroubled. He untied the bright, filmy scarves from around his waist, let them float onto the pile and dropped his rings on top. "Some things go slipping off from out my pan easy as floating ash, but a name I have never yet forgotten. For my Lord is fond of the power, and my Lady of the courtesy, and as on this they do motherfucking agree, so do I get on my ease of recall."

"So past me is a crack-panned tail-sucker, as always. Right. My name is Karkat Vantas."

Purple-scaled grey wings flicked and his hands went still. "Vantas," he repeated, frowning. "Now where's the sound of that being all to a thing I know?"

Karkat couldn't imagine a reason any greater demon would have heard his name before, but the purple eyes were unfocused and turned inward now, intent. Long, bony hands stripped off two last gold armlets and dropped them absently on the floor before the Highest turned and wandered through a door into the connecting chamber, peering at the painted walls. He still had strands of gold wrapping his horns, woven between them, and a chain of amethyst and iolite coiled along his lazily sweeping tail. Karkat wondered if he'd forgotten about them, if he often fell asleep with half his finery still on and woke to find it ruined. If he had anyone, unofficially maybe - there were no signs on his hands that Karkat had glimpsed and he would have heard about anything official anyway - who might check up on him, just to make sure he was eating, sleeping, not destroying all his belongings by spilling paint across them - oh. Oh. No.

He was not doing this. He was not entertaining pale fantasies about the highest highblood to breathe air instead of magma. In the past two sweeps he might have had something of a, a pale crush, briefly, now and again, because being saved from hideous dismemberment and death was enough to give anyone certain - all right, not expectations, that would be stupid, but thoughts, anyway. Saving someone was easily misinterpreted as a pale advance, was all, even though it obviously hadn't been intended that way -

_And now he's brought you back to his private rooms,_ whispered the treacherous voice at the back of his pan. _Just the two of you, all alone, and he's stripping off his formal garb in front of you. Like he trusts you to see him without all his ceremonial display._

No, he was stopping this ridiculousness now. Gamz - the _Highest_ was clearly just tired and wanted to take off all the tight jingling dangling things as soon as he could. He disregarded Karkat's presence because it was completely immaterial to him, that was all.

"Hah!" came a pleased sound from the other room. "Knew it was at being here somewhere!" A pause, and his wild mane came into view around the doorway, glittering horns tilted sideways as he peered in. "Bro? You all coming to see what I got my memory on of?"

"Uh - yeah. Sure."

The Highest grinned, broad and easy, as Karkat came over. He led the way to a corner of the - oh fucking snakes this was his respite block, the spellwheel he slept in was right over there, glittering by one wall. Never having seen a highblood's respite block before, Karkat had honestly expected something more elaborate, but it was just an upright wheel of shining runes hanging in the air, a bit bigger but not terribly different from his own. Carefully looking away, Karkat reminded himself that the Highest was not entertaining any feelings for him, flushed or pitch or pale, and he had been let in here because it didn't matter what he saw. He followed the big wings rustling excitedly in his face until the Highest stopped and pointed up. "Right there, my fine motherfucker. The first Vantas."

Karkat looked up at the painting of - huh. It was the outline of a grown demon, no details filled in but an impression of a short, stocky build, ordinary enough wings and tail, untamed short hair, very familiar nubby little horns. Bright red eyes. Like his had finished turning just this sweep.

"Holy fuck," Karkat muttered.

"They call him Sufferer and name him for his death, which was a harsh and a cruel with little mirth about it, but in life he went as Peaceway as he was all at calling for peace with the angels. But you'd be knowing of some of that, won't on and bore you."

"How would I fucking know any of this? I never heard of him before."

"You ain't got your familiarity on with the story?" He sounded startled, fucking idiot, like any knowledge a highblood had access to, the lowbloods would of course find out just as easily. "Oh. Well... You want I should up and tell it at you?"

"Give me the short version."

"Uh. Oh. 'kay. Um..."

Karkat rolled his eyes, growling a little. "There was an ugly, mutant-blooded demon with useless, almost nonexistent horns, and he wanted peace with the angels. Then what happened?"

"Now, bro, you can't just be saying shit like 'ugly' when I know well and true that's a motherfucking lie. That miracle red of yours, that is the soul and fucking essence of beauty." One hand lifted - Karkat almost flinched, but held himself still, barely breathing, as the back of a curved finger ghosted across his cheekbone, just under one eye. "Soul and fucking essence," the Highest murmured, gazing down at his burning face. Then his eyes widened, his hand jerked back, and Karkat watched from the depths of his hot, writhing confusion as dark purple swept up the pointed ears and tinged his neck and chest.

The voice at the back of his pan was shrieking. That was a _classic_ pale gesture, words, soulful gaze and all, seen in a hundred story cycles, but it wasn't like he'd done it on purpose; as soon as he realized, he pulled away. Did that mean he hadn't meant it, was just, fuck, doing random things because (maybe he needed a palemate so much diamonds were spilling all over the place and he'd take anyone, even a scrubby little wingless mutant noshutupshutup) his hand just happened to move that way? Or did that make it genuine because even though he hadn't meant to, the pity was strong enough to push through anyway? (And if it was genuine, it was only because there was nothing more pathetic than a wing-ripped lowblood gog no fucking _shutup_.)

Fuck, he was overthinking it. Kick it to the back, don't think about it, just wait and see what happens. Karkat swallowed, willed his face to cool and said as casually as he could, "So, this fucking story?"

Ga - the Highest brightened, uncertain look dissolving as he waved up at the wall. "All here, my best brother. In brief, at least."

Karkat looked again and realized there was a whole little series of Peaceway paintings. Some of them were heavily symbolic, but he could see the meaning once the Highest started explaining.

"All as it was back then, the war endless and inescapable, the fine brother got his wonder on as to how it should be that he and all he knew would go off to die by angels' hands and spells, and he up and got his spy on with his closest of companions. He studied why that the angels should fight on and on, tireless, and found in the end that they had on their weariness as deep as he and his. Then he got a fierce pity on him for the whole of angelkind, as much he already had for demonkind, and he began to call for to stop the fighting and dying.

"He made arrangement with those angels as were amenable to listen for that he'd bring in some demons higher of authority, that he had so little of. And that is where it up and went to shit," the Highest sighed.

"Peaceway had on his caution and his care, but a final one of those many he chose for speaking at was more bored than weary, had more spite in her than heed for his concerns over death and destruction. Rust as she was, she betrayed him to the empress, and all his treasonous thinking on peace. Ambush was arranged all at those angels as meant to meet in trust and faith to talk on peace, and most all killed. And Peaceway taken for execution."

The paintings on the wall were moving, alive behind Karkat's horrified eyes, a trick of the maja infused in the colors. Peaceway cruelly bound, dragged before a rubellite-decked figure with fins instead of wings, who sat in a throne formed of still-molten lava. His eyes were terrified, furious, hers intent, maliciously anticipatory. Behind the throne a massive figure stood silent, purple eyes shuttered. Peaceway flogged, tortured, screaming curses above the howling of the mob that watched.

"They drained him," the Highest said hoarsely. "Bled him down all to the motherfucking dregs, farther than the wickedest here would dare, til a breath of maja was all that stayed his up and falling to dust before them. Then the Condesce in her ruthlessness took and sent out bonds of the lava, that ain't no demon but amethyst and rubellite can stand the touch of, and - "

\- Lava wrapped around his wrists, pulled his arms above his head as he stood on the block in the middle of the crowd, still trying to speak, to argue, and it burned and burned and burned until he had no voice left for screaming.

"Stop," Karkat choked out, breathless. "Stop, stop, that's enough, I fucking get it, he died horribly, you said that already. Fuck. Stop."

"All right, bro, I'm at an end already, no more out my lips." He sounded almost as relieved to stop as Karkat was. Why would the idiot offer to tell a story that was clearly upsetting to him?

No, he was not pitying the highblood, he was just - curious. Annoyed by his stupid behavior.

He glanced over at the next picture and paused. That looked an awful lot like Nepeta. "Do not fucking tell me if the answer contains more hideous death, but who's that?"

"Peaceway's matesprit, what was his ally and comfort in all his long striving for peace. After he -after, she went away and traveled most the world, over land and underneath, all seeking a place demons could live without their fight on. And real eventual, a long motherfucking space later, she found this place."

"Holy shit, _that's_ Makekind?" Karkat remembered the name and a few facts from schoolfeeding when he was an imp, but there had been no pictures and no mention of Peaceway. "Didn't she die before we got here?"

"Yeah, my brother, she was a fierce fighter, for all she'd worked for peace so long, and one of many who volunteered to fight up in a rebellion to cover for the secret exodus nine sweeps back. Summoner was another, and my elder too, but he was the only one as survived." The Highest laughed a little. "A long fucking night's work it'd be to ever take him down."

Something was niggling at Karkat's memory. He frowned. "Wait, fuck. Was that - that was him standing behind the throne, wasn't it?" Horns a massive version of the Highest's, that wild mane of hair - that was the elder Makara all right. He looked for the picture on the wall where that figure stood in the background, unstirring, but couldn't find it. "That makes no fucking sense. If he's here, asleep or not, in a colony founded to escape the war, why the fuck did he stand there and watch as the guy who invented the fucking idea was tortured to death?"

The Highest blew out a long breath and his wings flexed and pulled in, hunching. "That... is a hard motherfucking thing to answer on." He stared at nothing for a minute. "It's kinda got a shape on it like this.

"Silenced, my elder, had no interest for the ending of wars, building any kind of peace, he likes the thrill of the fight too much for any care at stopping it. Peaceway was all at planning treason, anyway, to bring enough demons on his side they might force the empress's hand, and he was at need of being stopped and made an example of. So they took him and made to break him... but Peaceway had a motherfucking will to him, a courage that would not back down. As much as he cried out in pain, he never stopped making his argument to any would up and listen. Back then my elder went as Deathlaw Silencer, but even he couldn't find how to strike the fear into Peaceway that would shut him up.

"The more they got their torment on, the clearer that will of Peaceway's became, that bright power of courage up in him unbreakable, and Silencer found as he could not look away." The Highest stopped, chewing on his lip, and glanced sideways at Karkat. "It had no clarity for him what all it was he felt, if it was flush or pitch he got on in his heart or a piece of both, and a long motherfucking time it took him to understand what ailed him, but after Peaceway's death he had no rest. Could not sleep for aching of a thing he'd never had, and even the pleasure of a fine raid and slaughter in plenty slowly failed in him. Only his service to the double god sustained him.

"The Condesce was always one as paid bare service to the rites and rituals, no true believer, and when Silencer came to learn of some wishing to leave, start a colony anew, he saw a chance to establish a place of true worship. So he fought for it, and guarded the jadebloods and the many eggs they stole away, and found that one of the twelve new-hatched imps they stole as well, all the heiress's hatchmates, was his blood and sign. So when I came of age, he turned the sacred duties over to me and slept."

"So... you've always known he's actually your direct fucking ancestor," Karkat said, and then kicked himself. Of course the Highest knew; everyone knew. It was only the concept of directly interacting with an ancestor that was really fucking startling, and Ga - the Highest obviously had.

"Oh, yeah, my brother! Just as I figure Peaceway had to all be yours, pretty clear."

Karkat opened his mouth and closed it again. He wanted to argue the point, but other than "you can't prove it" there didn't seem to be much to say, unless he went with outright denial. Normally he would've, but he had the feeling the Highest would only give him a funny look and a laid-back smile. Instead he blatantly switched topics. "How do you know this, about his, how he... felt, all that stuff? There's no way he fucking told you all that."

Startled, the Highest gave an odd, whooping honk of a laugh. "Fuck no, bro! Ain't no way he'd let me in on all those little secrets of an elder demon's hates and pities. No, I, uh, I kinda, these sweeps he's been getting his rest on, I been sharing his dreams, at times. There's memory pieces as show up fair often."

What the fuck was there to say to that? Wow, sorry you get nightmarish scenes of torture and anguish shoved into your pan at regular fucking intervals while you sleep, that sucks a pus-spewing ogre orifice! A sharp throb of pity went through Karkat's thorax and he clenched his teeth. No, he was not going to succumb to his own stupid fantasies this time either. Another change of subject was called for. "Look, are you going to finish taking those off?"

...A change of subject that only avoided being a pale come-on by the narrowest of margins, way to go, past him. He nibbled on his lip and glared defensively as the Highest followed his gesture and put up a puzzled hand to his horns, then opened his mouth in understanding as he felt the gold ornaments on them.

"Well, bro, I most purely forgot about these! Uh... don't s'pose a brother could up and get his help on?"

Karkat gaped at him. It felt like the blush covered his body; even his tail felt hot, twitching nervously.

"Takes a delicate touch, see, and I ain't got the skill of it when I can't motherfucking see what I'm after. You got those little clever hands, I just figured..." The hopeful smile began to waver.

"Yeah," said Karkat hoarsely, before he could think again and realize what an idiotic idea this was. "Yeah, I can do that. Get your fucking horns down here so I can reach."

"Oh, you got it, bro!" The Highest cheerfully dropped to his knees, and Karkat just stared for a moment before shaking himself and reaching out. He pulled the sharp gold caps off the tips of the graceful, curving horns and began to unwind the lengths of gold chain and wire.

Was this pale? It felt pale as fuck, but he'd asked as though it was nothing at all. Did he think it didn't count with a wingless mutant? Maybe as the Highest he just assumed anyone would be happy to have a no-strings pale hook-up with him.

Fuck, but his horns were in really nice condition, smooth and polished with no scrapes or peeling, a deep, rich, healthy grade of colors. They should be well-tended on a highblood, of course, but somehow Karkat hadn't expected it.

He caught his hands lingering, trying to stroke over the cool keratin and down to the hornbeds, and snatched them away so fast he almost broke a chain. "Where am I supposed to fucking put these?" he growled, to cover.

"Drop 'em here, motherfucker!" One long palm reached out and Karkat piled the strands of gold on it. It was the left hand and it was almost automatic to check, and no, he'd been right, there was no diamond and no heart in any color on his skin. He knew he would have heard about it long since if there were, but it was still good to see for himself. Not that he cared about the heart, and not that he had any right to care about the diamond, whether or not the Highest was flirting with him egregiously. Still.

He pulled the last chain off and handed it over. "Right, that's it."

"Thanks, bro." Gamze - the Highest smiled at him, purple eyes luminous, and Karkat had no idea what to do, where to look, what expression to try for, so he just scowled and shrugged awkwardly. The Highest lifted the other hand and flicked his fingers, then tossed the tangle of jewelry into the sparks that appeared midair. Karkat thought he heard a little jingle from the other block and guessed the horn decorations had joined the larger pile of jewelry.

Then a door slammed open in the living block and a voice called "Makara!"

The Highest came to his feet and reached the door in two long strides, but relaxed when he saw who it was. "Tekras, brother, what's the haps?"

"I'm guessing you'd forgotten the pre-dawn devotion tonight."

The Highest groaned and sagged a bit. Suddenly he looked very tired. "Aww, motherfuck, am I late and all, bro?"

"No, Highest, I came in time to remind you. You will need to leave now, however."

"Yeah, yeah, got it." He turned back to Karkat, who twitched, having expected to be forgotten as the Highest went on to his next duty. "You wanna get your gander on at the devotion, my fine brother?"

"...Are you fucking kidding? Like lowbloods are even _allowed_."

"Nah, ain't disallowed, really, just someone's gotta get their personal invitation on. So, you want to up and see at it?"

He'd looked so worn down for a moment, and now he looked so pitifully eager, and Karkat couldn't begin to guess why the Highest wanted him to attend one of the holiest private rituals, but he couldn't refuse.

"I guess, why the fuck not?"

The demon who waited inside the door was Equius' dark sapphire, but considerably more slender. He gave Karkat a dismayed look, but the Highest just scooped Karkat into his arms - he let out a squeak like a startled imp and swore to make up for it - chuckled a little, and took off through the corridors again. Karkat clung to his neck and sternly told his pan-addled romantic thoughts about this to just fuck right off.

When they landed again they were in a relatively small chamber - space enough for maybe a hundred demons around the central dais, no more. Only fifty or so were gathered, nearly all highbloods, iolite, sapphire, lapis, malachite. Karkat spotted one other lowblood, a short sulpher who was sweating yellow, so nervous she was practically sitting in the lap of the purple who must be her quadrant.

The Highest set Karkat down right next to the knee-high platform and smiled at him. Under the paint, his face looked oddly strained, his eyes tight. "You get your comfort on, brother, and enjoy the show." He started to turn away, paused. "And... thanks for coming, bro." His voice was very soft, no one else would hear.

"Uh. No problem," Karkat muttered, bewildered.

The Highest stepped onto the dais and waited for the stirring to die down, the murmurs and folding of wings. Then he raised his head.

"Serpent Lord," he said quietly, "single face of the Double God, we come to worship Thee not in pain and destruction, for such is the air you breathe and as little notable, but as pleases Thee most, in tenderness."

Karkat was distracted as he went on, realizing what he was about to see. He hadn't forgotten, exactly, how Caliborn was worshipped, but he hadn't put together that dawn devotion was when it would occur. He was about to watch some random pair of moirails pile it up on a stage in front of fifty demons who weren't even clade to them. Fuck, there was even a pile standing ready behind the Highest, how had he missed that? Snake-fucking shit, this was not the plan. Could he even watch this?

...Who the fuck was he kidding, he was going to soak up every minute like the sick pervert he was.

"Who steps forward to worship?" the Highest said, and a tall lapis blue demon stepped forward, grinning nervously. Karkat looked around for the guy's moirail, but didn't see anyone else moving. He looked back at the dais as the demon got on and the Highest was going over to the pile - what, did he have to bless it first? No, he was sitting down. Lying back on his side, wings carefully folded. What the fuck, had the idiot forgotten -

The blueblood was joining him.

What. The. Fuck.

He settled in next to Gamzee on the pile and reached out a cautious hand to brush across his bare shoulder. The Highest sighed a little and the blue visibly relaxed. He began stroking wild hair out of Gamzee's eyes, away from his painted face, and looking more confident with every touch.

Karkat's thorax was knotted up in a hot mass. He probably should have realized that the Highest would be involved in _all_ the rituals, but it had never crossed his mind that it would be so intimately. He'd stupidly assumed that lacking a moirail would bar him from participating in pale devotion. Possibly because this was insane - what, did they ask for volunteers? Hold a lottery? Step up now, anyone peridot or higher, to win a chance to make a cruel mockery of the diamond quadrant at the low cost of knowing yourself to be more loathsome and morally devoid than slime mold! Just... what the fuck.

The blue was smiling now, looking pleased, and Karkat wanted to claw up his face. Gamzee's eyes were closed, his face still; it was hard to tell if he was enjoying this or not. His tail was limp, but Karkat didn't know if that just meant he was totally relaxed or if it should be curling happily to show real contentment. He didn't know, because he wasn't Gamzee's moirail, wasn't even his hatefriend, he didn't know any more about him than every other lowblood in the colony. He had absolutely no right to rage about this, no matter how wrong it seemed. Gamz - the Highest was a greater demon, he wasn't a helpless imp, he could make his own fucking decisions.

Rubbing behind one ear won a startled moan. The blue chuckled, rubbed some more, and then pulled out a polishing cloth and Karkat's lips twitched into a snarl. Asshole had come prepared, and now it was clear why those lovely curving horns were so well tended. If he did this every - what, three nights? Karkat tried to think how often dawn devotion fell and realized he didn't actually know. It had never been relevant before. Fuck, how many times had Gamzee already had to participate in this sort of farce? Did he even know what real pity would feel like?

One hand ran down the length of a horn, rubbed at the base, and Gamze - the Highest spasmed in shock, tail lashing.

"Oh, bro, ain't gotta - "

"Shhh, hush now," the blue said in a soothing tone, and rubbed firmly at his hornbeds with both hands. Gamzee let out a sound between a moan and a whimper, twitched faintly, and went still. His wings went slack on the pile, his long limbs sprawled out, and his tail was limp and dead. He looked dazed, lids drooping over confused purple eyes, and unless Karkat was losing his ability to understand speech, which he very much fucking doubted, Gamzee had just tried to ask the blue not to do that and the asshole in question had responded by using his submission reflex to shut him up.

That was so far from being acceptable that it was stretching out the opposite side of the universe. It was uncertain whether or not acceptability actually existed because no light could travel that far. Scientelligence gatherers were trying to theoretically prove that -

No, fuck the overextended metaphor and fuck this. He was done.

Karkat hadn't realized he'd started growling until the skinny-ass purple beside him elbowed him and hissed. Turning on him, Karkat startled himself with the sound that came out, deeper than a snarl, louder than his usual growl, with harmonics to it that made the purple flinch back instinctively, bewildered. Before he could collect himself, before any of the outraged faces around them could move in, Karkat jumped up onto the dais and stepped toward the pile.

"I call outright fucking sacrilege!" he snapped. His tail swept back and forth through the air like a whip.

The blueblood gaped at him and then scowled, suddenly reminding him of Vriska for more than his color. "You're interrupting a sacred rite, so yeah, I'd say there's some blatant sacrilege here. Get off the stage before you get dragged off and tapped out, rot-pan."

"He's not pale for you," Karkat growled. His voice still had that deep undertone it'd never had before, and the blue looked briefly unnerved, wings shifting. Taller he might be, along with half the demons here, but Karkat and Gamzee were older than anyone else in this chamber, and for once it might briefly be worth something. None of the rest of them could make a sound like that yet.

Recovering himself, the blue sneered and ran a deliberate hand along Gamzee's horn from tip to bed, making his breathing hitch and shudder. "He's pale for anyone he needs to be, nookstain, it's his job. Shit, he could probably even pity - "

"More importantly," Karkat drowned him out, "you're not pale for _him_. You're not even making a good attempt. If you gave half a fuck, you'd listen to what he fucking wants." He stepped up to the pile and loomed as best he could, letting those rumbling harmonics warp his voice into something skin-prickling. "So get. Off. The stage. _I_ will finish the fucking devotion."

The blue half crouched, hands off Gamzee and poised to pull a weapon or a spell, and Karkat flexed his claws and got ready to parry or dodge, whatever seemed best.

"Bro," said a soft, hoarse voice.

Karkat flicked a glance at Gamzee, who was still dazed and unmoving but frowning slightly, trying to pull words together. The blueblood didn't even look at him, just laid a hand on his horns and said "Shoosh."

"Don't you shoosh him, you sick asshole," Karkat snarled. "He's trying to talk!"

"Brother - Vantas," Gamzee managed. "Let him... he can..."

Karkat's thorax tightened. Fuck, had he misinterpreted? Was Gamzee - the Highest fine with this manipulative imp-fucker treating him like this?

"Let me finish what I was doing and get out of my face," the lapis interpreted with a triumphant smirk.

"No," Gamzee said faintly. "Vantas."

"You," Karkat swallowed, "you want me to do it?"

He smiled just a little, eyes falling closed again. "Yeah, bro."

Karkat looked back at the blueblood and met narrowed grey-blue eyes, holding them steadily until he stood with an elaborate shrug and sneer, loomed pointedly for a moment, and stepped off the dais.

Taking a deep breath, Karkat sat down on the pile. Now that the crisis was over it was beginning to sink in exactly what he'd signed up for. His first pile ever, on stage, in front of a crowd of annoyed and dubious highbloods. As always, past him managed to get him into the most unbelievably asinine situations.

The Highest interrupted his thoughts before paralysis could fully set in, making a tiny breath of a noise like a voiceless whimper. Fuck, the reflex still had him strong and he couldn't move, could barely open his eyes. That had to be fucking terrifying.

"Hey," he said quietly, putting a careful hand on one still arm, "it's okay, I'm right here. I've got you, you're safe."

The Highest - no, they were in a fucking pile, fuck it, he could think like a moirail for once at least - _Gamzee_ sighed and the flicker of smile came back. Karkat looked at that smile, felt his pusher throb with pity and go all warm and floaty, and thought with weary resignation how very fucked he was.

He rubbed Gamzee's shoulders for awhile, took the opportunity to trace the lines of his face in the most blatantly pale way and stroked his cheeks until he started to feel guilty for taking advantage of the situation. It wasn't like Gamzee'd had much of a choice; it was Karkat or that blue nookwipe. He shouldn't be doing whatever he wanted to do, he needed to balance appropriate paleness for the devotion with not overstepping Gamzee's boundaries or fooling himself into thinking this was real.

"Okay," he muttered. "You've still got that jeweled tail-wrap on. I meant to say something before you left, but I forgot. You mind if I take that off?"

"Nah, bro, go for it," Gamzee said. His voice was still quiet and hoarse, but clearer than it had been, and he didn't seem to be struggling so hard for words. When his eyes wavered open this time, they stayed that way, and when Karkat carefully picked up his tail it twitched in his hands.

The gold wrap came off easily enough and Karkat tucked it into an air pocket so Gamzee wouldn't just forget it on the pile.

"Hey, thanks, motherfucker." He smiled, crooked and genuine, and Karkat felt his face get even hotter than it already was. Fuck, he was probably visibly ruddy, not that his color wasn't already obvious with his scars and eyes and all, and an audience of highbloods looking on.

He looked away, glowered at the layers of muscle over Gamzee's thorax. "Sure, no problem."

"Awww, look at that pretty color get all its show on." One arm lifted shakily, brushed fingers against Karkat's face, and flopped onto his lap.

Karkat had been opening his mouth to growl at him for pointing that out, as though he might not have noticed, but the touch startled the words away and he just huffed and shifted the stray arm more comfortably across his legs. Thank the fucking snakes, Gamzee was beginning to get muscle control back. "Well, what else? The fire dance is over, so you'll be putting on a new pattern tomorrow. Should I start taking your paint off now?"

Purple eyes went wide and his claws tensed just enough to hook into the fabric of Karkat's pants. "...Really rather you didn't, bro..."

What the fuck? "Okay already, fuck's sake. Relax, it was just a suggestion." Gamzee was breathing faster anyway and Karkat's voice softened involuntarily. "Shoosh, you wreck, it's okay, I won't."

He smiled shakily, but he was still watching Karkat's face above it. Shit. Karkat's bloodpusher twisted and he felt almost sick to realize Gamzee wasn't sure it was safe to trust his word. How many fucking times had patronizing imp-fuckers like that lapis ignored what he wanted, saying appropriate, soothing things and then going on to do exactly what they wanted to do? (Just like Karkat had been doing, stroking his face like that, taking liberties like an actual moirail, shit, fuck.) How many times had he been forced to go along with things he didn't want in this very pile? Ignoring for the moment that the entire thing was required for ritual's sake and wasn't necessarily something he'd ever wanted to do in the first place...

"Fuck," Karkat said, tight and miserable, and leaned over to put his face in Gamzee's hair by his ear. "This whole thing is so fucked up," he said as low as he could so with any luck the whole chamber wouldn't be privy to it, "and I'm not making it any better. I didn't mean to scare you, I am the worst fuck-up, it is me, I take the fucking prize - "

"Whoa, whoa, best bro," Gamzee said, and a hand landed on the back of Karkat's head, ruffled gently, stroked. "Slow down a space, shoosh. 's okay, ain't your fault. None of the motherfucking fault is on to being yours."

Karkat felt his muscles quiver and go limp, and flopped down half on Gamzee without any intention to do so. He was shivering, hands fastened on the arm across his legs, and kept trying to wriggle closer in the most pathetic display. He tried to apologize and couldn't even make sense, his voice was shaking.

"Shoosh, brother." His voice was so gentle and quiet, he was just barely getting out of a forced submissive state and instead of helping, Karkat was acting like a whiny pan-rotted imp. The hand in his hair rubbed at his scalp a bit, stroked some more, slid down to cup the back of his neck. "Hey, you help me and I help you, that's how as it's all at being meant to work, yeah?"

Karkat tried to clear his throat, to answer, but all that came out was a shaky noise. His eyes stung. It felt so real. Gamzee was acting so perfectly pale, so caring and protective, it felt like -

_if any other wants to do you harm, they will have to come through Gamzee fucking Makara first_

\- like a promise finally kept. Which was stupid, and was going to make this hurt so much worse in a few minutes when it was over.

Someone cleared her throat in the distance, somewhere off the dais. "It, uh, it is now dawn. This formally concludes the pre-dawn devotion to Lord Caliborn."

Not a few minutes. Now. It was over now.

"Go in peace, brothers and sisters," Gamzee said, not loudly, but loud enough to be heard in the quiet. "Be you tender to your own red quadrants in reverence to the Double God."

People began to shuffle and murmur as they moved about, trickling out, and several louder voices started up, " - with a shitblood is an outrage! Completely sacrilegious!" " - cannot _believe_ the Highest - " " - all so sweet and _pale!_ " Then low, firm words hushed the arguments into hissing whispers, which drifted slowly out the doors. It all seemed very distant.

Karkat knew it was time to stop this nonsense and act like a grown fucking demon for once, but his body wasn't listening. It was curled over Gamzee, clinging. Of fucking course he had found a way to make this whole ordeal even more humiliating than necessary, it was just what Karkat did, an example of how much he hated himself and why at the same time.

The block slowly emptied as Gamzee continued stroking his hair, rubbing the back of his neck, murmuring quietly in his ear. "Just you relax, best bro. Rest yourself here a while, ain't no one gonna come and bother at us here. So much motherfucking tension all up in your little body, don't you never just sit a spell and smile? Does a wonder for the calm and quiet of a body."

It was the strangest mix of peaceful relaxation and misery, lying here being soothed. He knew it was only for the devotion, but the physical sensation was enough to fool his muscles into uncoiling, his grip on Gamzee's arm loosening, a little chirring thrum starting up in his thorax. He didn't know if he could handle losing this even if it was an illusion.

Better do it quickly, then, get it over with so he couldn't fool himself it was anything more solid and permanent.

The block was empty now except for the two of them. Taking a breath, he pushed himself up, though pulling away from that warm touch felt like stripping off skin. Gamzee's hand tried to follow him, hung in midair, dropped.

"Bro?"

"Devotion's over," Karkat said shortly, standing up and stepping back so he wouldn't just tip over on him again. "I should get off you."

Gamzee's smile shrank and he looked down. "Oh. Right, yeah. Do what your heart all motherfucking tells at you, I guess."

That was just about the fucking limit. Karkat's minimal self-control snapped. "No, I will fucking _not_ , because what I want has abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with it! You panrotted nooksniffing bulgeleak, _you're not mine!_ I have no fucking right to lie here and - and fucking _pretend_ \- " Shit, his voice was cracking and he hadn't meant to say any of that anyway. Karkat pressed the palm of one hand against an eye, trying to swallow enough to speak again.

Gamz - the _Highest_ wasn't smiling anymore. The look on his face was unfamiliar, with set jaw and narrowed eyes. Swaying, he shoved himself upright, hissed as one of his wingtips jammed against the pile, and braced himself on shaky arms. "So none of it's so, that's what you're on to saying, it was all a motherfucking pretense? You jumping in so sure and quick when a brother had me all splayed out helpless and was like to get his pile on whether I would or no?" His voice lowered, beseeching. "Touching me all sweet and tender, pale as quartz? Pale as a _motherfucking fated_ serendipitous romance from a story epic? And you're up and saying it was ALL a MOTHERFUCKING LIE?"

Holy shit, if that was what the harmonics in Karkat's voice had sounded like, no wonder the younger demons had flinched. "No!" Karkat snarled back. "I'm saying it doesn't fucking _matter!_ What I want doesn't change anything!"

"Well if what _YOU_ want DOESN'T MATTER, and what _I_ want DOESN'T MATTER, then brother, tell at me EXACTLY _WHAT MOTHERFUCKING DOES?_ " He was on his feet now, wings half-spread, tail lashing, though his balance was off and he swayed with every movement. The scleras of his eyes were shading orange.

"What the fuck do you _mean_ , what you want doesn't matter?! You're the fucking _Highest_ , what you want is all that matters!"

"Then SIT THE FUCK DOWN and MOTHERFUCKING SHOOSH!" the Highest roared.

Karkat just stared at him for a moment. Then he stepped forward and raised a hand to one painted cheek. Stroked softly. "You shoosh, idiot," he sighed.

The Highest swayed there a moment, blinking, then folded at the knees and collapsed into the pile. Karkat followed him down and continued papping, resigned. If the Highest had decided he wanted a pale one-day-stand, a one-day-stand he would fucking get. At least Karkat wouldn't have to feel guilty about taking advantage of him. And... it was kind of nice that Gamzee wanted him even that much.

"Shoosh, shhh, calm down." He traced the lines of cheekbones, brows, rubbed between his eyes, stroked his hair, until the purple and orange eyes were back to calm yellow and blinking sleepily.

"The fuck is wrong with this, anyway?" he mumbled after a while, looking up at Karkat.

"Nothing, nookbite." As much as he rubbed and patted, the paint didn't even smear. He probably should have guessed before that it was fixed to stay with a spell, but what did a fucking lowblood know about ritual paint? "If you want a one-day-stand, I can do that."

One hand snapped out and grabbed his wrist, held it still. "A one-day-stand," he said, expressionless.

"Yes, a fucking one-day-stand," Karkat snapped in exasperation. "Don't try to tell me you want more than that, not from me."

Purple eyes closed for a long few seconds. This time when the Highest sat up, he barely swayed at all. He held Karkat's hand between his in his lap and stared at it, and his head bowed so hair hung down to hide his eyes. "All right," he said. "I won't. I ain't desirous to say at nothing that'd offend or dismay a brother. But bro, I - " His breath caught and shook, steadied again, and his voice dropped. "I been all pale as limestone since the motherfucking night those ogres caught you."

Karkat stared at him, pan spinning in disbelief, and then the Highest lifted his head and Karkat stopped breathing, because his eyes were wet and faint streaks of purple trailed down his paint.

"Fuck," Karkat said, and threw himself at Gamzee, frantically holding and stroking his face, pressing against his chest, "don't, don't cry, I'm such a fuck-up, I didn't mean to make you cry, please, fuck don't - "

"Shoosh," Gamzee said softly, arms coming around him. He smiled a little, lifted a hand to Karkat's face to wipe the sudden pink blur from his eyes. "Same goes on at you, miracle brother. Don't let all that pretty miracle color up and leak out your ducts."

"Fuck you," Karkat muttered, hiding his face in Gamzee's shoulder. This had the pleasant side effect of drawing Gamzee's hand to the back of his head, where it stroked and skritched and rubbed his neck until he felt like a warm, contented puddle of purring demon in Gamzee's lap, lying up against him. After a while he took a breath and said against smooth grey skin, "I'm pale for you too. Obviously. Given this whole fucking mess I got into because of it."

"Mess, brother? What all mess would that get to being?"

Karkat snorted. "Maybe the one where my first fucking pile ever was on a stage in front of a bunch of snake-fucking voyeurs?" Shit, he probably shouldn't have said that - purples got pissy when you blasphemed against the god, and Gamzee was the Double Serpent God's foremost worshipper.

"Hey, me too!" the Highest said cheerfully, taking no notice. "Gotta be motherfucking serendipity."

"What - how is - Ga - " no, he _would_ , and if the Highest had a problem with it he could fucking say so, " - Gamzee, that's not how serendipity works."

Not a single twitch in the long frame, but what might have been a small, contented sigh. "No? Awww. Well, you're serendipitous as fuck anyway, motherfucker."

They cuddled in oddly peaceful silence for a while. Karkat's tail sprawled over the pile, flopping lazily back and forth while Gamzee's languorously curled and uncurled. Gamzee was purring too, low and raspy, and it was better than he'd ever had a right to expect, but Karkat kept being distracted by the fact that nice as this pile was, it was on a dais in a block for ceremonial highblood gatherings, which had multiple open entrances. Private and secure it was not.

He did not want to move, but he did want to be somewhere more conducive to safely letting down his guard. Eventually he sighed and forced his squawk-blister to make communicative sounds to that effect. Gamzee picked him up and got to his feet without much effort, and as he took off Karkat realized he was almost getting used to being carried around all the time by everyone. By the time they landed back in Gamzee's block he was still grumbling about it.

"Aw, but best bro, you're all to being such a perfect size for it! 'Sides, I got a long-ass span of time on of not having you I gotta get at making up for. Gonna carry you and hold you and be keeping you all closest I can." He set Karkat down and ruffled his hair, then tossed a sealing spell at the doors.

Karkat looked aside, scowling at some spilled paint to better ignore the part of him that was swooning over the declaration. A long-ass span of time, he thought, and the warmth in him began to seep away. "Two sweeps." He bit his lip. "Did - did you remember at all before you saw me tonight?"

Gamzee went still and his smile died. "No I did not." He raked a hand through his hair, blew out a long breath. "I knew as there was a thing I should get my memory on to, but that ain't a thing that's so uncommon. Nor any help to the getting of it back."

"Gamzee... if the Serpent Lord is so fond of moirails and their tenderness, then... why did he let you forget? Or fucking make you, whatever."

Teeth bared, Gamzee shook his head hard, as if to flick away a buzz-critter with his tossing hair. "Brother, I cannot _fucking_ _guess_. Minute I left you, back then, memory got its fucking slip and shift on, started motherfucking slithering away and not a FUCKING THING could I do about it." He was breathing faster, hands clenching in the air.

"Shoosh," Karkat said firmly, feeling a delicious thrill that he was actually now the one who was allowed to say that. He had a moirail, holy fuck, the _Highest_ was his _moirail_. Nepeta was going to fucking flip. He reached up to pap one painted cheek. "It's okay, relax. I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere."

Gamzee stared at him, still breathing hard. "It ain't okay. It ain't, what if I - Bro, the minute you leave, what if I _motherfucking forget_ you again?" Purple was welling up in his eyes again, spilling over, and he looked half out of his pan at the thought.

"I said _shoosh_. Stop panicking," Karkat ordered, thinking hard. He took Gamzee's wrist and tugged him across the cluttered floor to what looked like the most comfortable pile and pushed him down on it. Thumping down in his lap again, he kept papping. "You said you'd never forget a name, and you know mine now. Would that help?"

"Don't motherfucking _know!_ But... can't think but as it might not. I'll know the name, know it's all at belonging to your face, bro, but what it is you are to me will plain escape my pan til you're there before me, naught to pin it down and hold it steady."

"Okay. Okay. Fuck, okay, I think - Gamzee." He couldn't say it for a moment, it seemed so unlikely, but then he heard again _pale as limestone_ and braced himself. "Do you really want me for your moirail? No, don't just fucking say yes, think about it! Because I'm, I'm not exactly the most eligible demon, I mean, I'm kind of an asshole, and then there's the mutant thi - "

One hand went across his mouth, cutting him off, and the other onto the back of his head, and Gamzee pulled him forward and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. "Yes, I most motherfucking do. Pale as quartz for two sweeps, bro. Ain't going away now I've all up and got you." His eyes were still a little wild, but at least he was smiling again.

Karkat couldn't speak for a moment, and then he swallowed hard and tried to sound matter of fact. "Right. Well, if you're sure. If you need something to hold the memory down in your pan, would, you know, a visible mark of my presence help? Like, a sign on your skin, maybe?" Snakes fuck him, he could feel himself blushing again, but maybe he should be glad. If he had to make a boldfaced proposition like this, at least he wasn't completely shameless about it.

Gamzee's eyes were round and bright. "Oh," he said softly. "Yeah, bro. That would all up and motherfucking do it, just about. You, you want that? Sign it up, make it official?"

Karkat burrowed against his shoulder, hiding his face. "Yeah. I do."

A gentle hand stroked his hair, combed claws carefully through it, rubbed behind an ear so he gave a startled chirp. "You ready now?"

"Yeah, sure, let's fucking do it."

Gamzee dug a claw into his own forearm. "Hand, bro," he said as purple seeped out. Karkat held up his left hand, palm out, and felt the prickle of maja as Gamzee used the blood to delicately trace his own sign in the center of Karkat's palm. "Pale as quartz," he murmured, "pale as motherfucking moonstone. There."

There was a brief flash of pain as the sign burned into his skin, and then Karkat was staring at Gamzee's sign in iolite purple at the center of his own square palm, where a moirail's mark traditionally went. He felt sort of giddy. It was so fucking _romantic_. These days not everyone exchanged signs with their quadrants, and a few didn't even do a mark at all, a diamond or heart or spade in their quadrant's color. This was old-fashioned and fucking perfect.

"Right," he said, a little breathless. "You next." He clawed the back of his wrist and drew the curves and circles of his sign on Gamzee's palm in bright, ridiculous crimson, feeling the trickle of maja pulled from him by the old ritual. It sparked faintly as the spell took hold, fixing the lines on his skin, and Gamzee grinned at him. Karkat took a breath and then pressed his newly-marked palm against Gamzee's.

Maja sang between their hands, lanced up Karkat's arm, swept across his thorax and down his body, prickling against his skin. The air around him shivered, he saw sparks flicker and glow around Gamzee's hair and horns, and then it was over and both of them were breathing fast in the pile.

"Whoa, brother," Gamzee said. "Never heard it said as there was a motherfucking miracle lightshow all included!"

"What - oh, the sparks?"

"Sparks, bro? More like little bolts of shock-light on up your arms, hanging over your shoulders and all."

"Huh." Karkat frowned. "That's fucking weird. You had sparks all around your head. Whatever." Beginning to feel sleepy, he leaned forward against Gamzee's chest and closed his eyes, claiming the cuddle now rightfully his. Gamzee wrapped both arms around him with a raspy chirp that he was willing to acknowledge in the privacy of his own pan was unreasonably adorable.

It was well past dawn by now, they should both probably get to their wheels soon, but Karkat didn't want to leave. He had Gamzee's sign now, he knew this moirallegience wasn't just going to vanish without a trace, but. Drowsy as he was, he could still make it back safely whenever he left, it wouldn't hurt anything if he hung around to enjoy this pile a bit longer.

They snuggled for a while before he remembered and woke up a little. "Oh, hey. Now that we're in private. What the fuck is up with your paint? Is that off limits completely, do you not take it off at all for some pancracked reason, or - "

"Nah, bro, it ain't that." Gamzee squeezed him uncomfortably tight for a moment, then hurriedly loosened up again when he wriggled. "Sorry, sorry. Nah, 's just - paint's, like, what I do, all at being the Highest and that. If - when I take it off, I ain't Highest no more, just me. So. At devotion, it's like, better to up and be Highest. Maybe don't make sense, but - "

"No, I get it," Karkat said quietly. "It's a hideous fucking bulge-knot of a situation in the first place, if wearing your paint gives you a little, I don't know, distance or something, you should do what you fucking have to to be okay."

"Thanks, best friend," Gamzee said into his hair, nuzzling one horn.

Karkat's diamond flipped over helplessly in his thorax. Not trusting himself to speak, he reached up to rub behind Gamzee's ears and was smug to shortly have him purring again, loud and raspier than ever. After a while, Gamzee pulled him in and lay down on the pile, curling around him, one wing spread over them both. Karkat chirred lazily, feeling warm and pitied, and wondered how the fuck he got so lucky.

"Say, brother, how was it you were all at being bound, there by the dance earlier?"

"Oh. Fucking highbloods were being curse-sucking nookstains, wanted to drain me, so I said - "

"They what?" Gamzee's voice was abruptly flat and toneless, and Karkat rolled his eyes and papped him firmly.

"You heard me, and you are not getting all bent out of shape now I've spent so much time getting you all fucking peaceful and relaxed. They were assholes, so I said I was on my way to see you, and - uh." Shit, he should have thought to say something earlier, warn him, but it'd all gone straight out of his pan - "I used your name. Your full name. I couldn't think how else to convince them I knew you, so I - fuck, there were four of them, and all of them heard - I should have thought of something else, that was so fucking _stupid_ \- "

"Aw, shoosh, pale-bro. Motherfuck, I pity you so fucking hard it's like miracles up in here. I got my hope on strong they do try and use it against me, since for all it'd be some inconvenient shit, that'd tell me who all was at bothering my _motherfucking moirail_." Flustered as he was by this, Karkat was still ready to shoosh Gamzee again, but his moirail sighed and then chuckled. "But don't you get your fret on over it, brother, I'm the motherfucking Highest. Ain't but one or two highbloods in the whole colony got the granite fucking globes to try such a work on me, and both I know well."

"One was a blue called, uh, Desset, something like that."

"Nah, don't know that one."

Karkat felt the tension seep away despite himself as Gamzee began rubbing at his scalp, the back of his neck, behind his ears. "Well, if you're crackpanned enough not to worry about it, I guess I'm enough of a hopeless moron to assume you know what you're doing," he managed through the chirps and heavy purring.

"Yeah, just you get your peace on, bro." Gamzee's purr rumbled deep in his chest, vibrating Karkat as he rested his head there. "You said you were all coming to see me? Watch the dance, you mean?"

"Fuck, no, I didn't even think about that when I said it, I didn't know it was a ceremonial day until I saw that purple's paint, I just meant they should let me go so I could go visit you, and then the fucking purple decided she should tie me up so I couldn't run away in case you did want to see me after the dance."

Gamzee growled a little, relaxed again. "Come visit to me? You planned at doing that, bro?"

Karkat winced. "Well, no. Fuck, I knew you didn't fucking remember me and had no reason to think you would. I said it so they'd leave me alone, all right? ...I didn't know," he added in a low tone. "If I'd known you could be reminded, I'd have come as soon as I - " healed up, stopped feeling like a broken waste of flesh, so, last week then, " - well, earlier, anyway."

"Pity you so hard, miracle bro," Gamzee murmured against one horn, and Karkat shivered. He tried to cover it up by sounding extra grumpy.

"Yeah, well, guess I should have figured sooner, if anything inspires easy pity it's a short, nubby-horned, mutant wing-ripped lowblood. At least my fucking tail is intact." He flicked it against Gamzee's thigh for emphasis.

"That ain't why I pity you, though."

"What, my tail?"

"No, bro, your motherfucking wings what you up and lost so cruel," Gamzee said patiently. "An awful fucking sight it was to be sure, and a sorrow in me that I couldn't get there sooner as to stop it, but it ain't the source of this paleness I got all in me."

"But - what - It's the horns, isn't it."

Gamzee snorted and tapped Karkat on the head right between the horns. "That right there is at being the motherfucking reason. Not your fucking horns. That you got no simple notion why any other being might find a morsel of pity on in their soul for you. Bro, you are all at ignorance as to the most righteous motherfucking preciousness of yourself. Figure it's my job now to help get your schoolfeed on."

Karkat scowled and buried his face more firmly in Gamzee's chest. "Obviously you are delusional from lack of sleep if you seriously think you could schoolfeed me on any fucking topic at all. It is my duty as a good moirail to point these things out. Come on, you pancracked idiot, it's mid-morning, you should get to your wheel."

"Room enough for two," Gamzee said hopefully.

"Snakes fuck me," Karkat muttered as his pusher stuttered in shock and hope. "Aren't you moving a little fast?"

"Uh, bro, we did all just up and exchange signs. And, y'know, if you asked me, I'd say we're two motherfucking sweeps behind already."

"...You might have a point." Karkat swallowed. "Um. Are you sure?"

"Sure as stone and earth. Don't... don't leave, bro. Just let me, like, get used to having you a bit. Just a night or two, promise I won't keep you long, I know as you got other places to be at, things to get done - "

"Shoosh." Karkat stroked his jaw, eyes closed for a brief, grateful moment. "It's all right. I'll stay."

The spellwheel was indeed big enough for two, at least when one had no wings. Gamzee stepped in first and floated into the middle of the warm bubble of air, then held out a hand to Karkat. Karkat had never shared a wheel before, and getting all limbs comfortably arranged when they were both floating half entwined took some doing. He ended up with his head against Gamzee's shoulder, listening to the slow drumbeat under his thoracic struts, tail draped around Gamzee's leg. Gamzee's big hands were gentle on his back over the wing scars.

"You still have your paint on," he mumbled after they were settled and beginning to doze off.

"Mm. Y' can take it off this evening."

"Yeah? That's okay?"

"Sure, bro." Sleepy purple eyes opened, smiled at him. "Ain't one motherfucking thing in all of earth and sky," Gamzee murmured, "as I wouldn't trust you with, pale-bro, my diamond half."

"Fuck, Gamzee." He didn't even know what to call the way that made him feel. It was almost like awe, but warm and soft and astonished. It couldn't be good for a bloodpusher to be so full of emotion that it ached. "I've _got_ to train you out of saying things like that."

"Free to try at it, best bro," Gamzee said contentedly. "Ain't gonna happen, though."

Karkat was trying to work out a retort, but the words kept escaping him. Before he could quite grasp why he couldn't answer properly, he drifted off, and slept peacefully for the first time in sweeps.


	2. The Angel Business from Three Nights Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After such a rapid and tumultuous pale courtship, Karkat might have hoped for time alone with his new moirail. Unfortunately, inter-species politics are pile-blocking him tonight.

Karkat woke because the warm surface pressed against him jerked hard as a loud banging started somewhere nearby. He flailed in confusion a moment, vision obscured by grey and more grey, and then abruptly realized strong arms were holding him against someone's thorax, big wings wrapped around them both, cutting out the light.

This would have been alarming except that a deep, unfamiliar comfort lingered in him, a warmth and sweetness that eased his reaction to a sleepy mumble of "The fuck?"

"Gngrrm," said his companion into the top of Karkat's head, tightening his hold.

That voice - the Highest - no, _Gamzee_ \- He had a moirail! He was in his moirail's spellwheel, they'd _exchanged signs_ already and then he'd _slept_ here!

Drawing a deep breath, Karkat curled more firmly into Gamzee to hide the smile spreading helplessly across his face. Then he poked his moirail in the thoraxic struts.

"Hey, fuckhead," he said gruffly. "I think someone's at the door. You have someplace to be already?"

"Noooo, brother," Gamzee said, pretty much whining as his wings shivered and tried to wrap tighter. "Ain't right, to be disturbing a brother so, and him with a new moirail and all. Why's a door got to up and get its noise on like that?"

The banging had settled into a steady rhythm now and muffled shouting could faintly be heard through it. Karkat was quite sure this was not the usual way to wake up the Highest, which meant that either he was about to have a beautiful excuse to start the night off right reaming someone out, or something was wrong.

"Gamzee, you sealed the door before we went to sleep. Go take it off so you can find out what the fuck is wrong with them at this hour of the evening." Fuck, he could feel the sun hadn't even finished setting yet.

"Aw, bro," Gamzee groaned, but his wings and arms reluctantly unwrapped and after a minute he slid down the warm bubble of air to the floor. Karkat hastily dropped after him, since it was suddenly weird to be alone in the wheel, and stood there awkwardly as Gamzee trailed into the other block to the big double doors.

What if it was important business? Would it embarrass Gamzee for Karkat to be seen coming out of his respite block? What if he -

Karkat raised his left hand and stared at the palm, the purple sign blazoned there. _No_ , it wasn't going to embarrass Gamzee to have his _moirail_ come out of his block. And also, Gamzee, feel embarrassed about anything, ever? He'd have to emerge from his eternal friendly daze enough to notice or care what another demon thought, first. Early evening was making the little voice in Karkat's head even stupider than usual.

As soon as the spell was lifted, both doors slammed open and the demon standing there bowed slightly. Karkat's tail lashed in shock and he stared for a second, thinking whoever it was had lost his wings too. Then his eyes made sense of the orange light around the visitor's body. Holy shit, the demon was an amethyst, wingless and tailless but draped in fire to stay warm up here. Behind him clustered several other highbloods, blues and an iolite purple, looking on anxiously.

"Highest," the amethyst said, "Her Incandescence calls for your presence below. She is most anxious that you grace her with your company as soonest you can."

"Whoa, my brother, that's all kinds of sudden-like!" Gamzee scratched at the mass of tangled hair around the base of his horns, wings flexing to refold more tidily. "Got any notion as to why she's on to wanting me?"

"No, Highest," the flame-dweller said, and Karkat's tail flicked as he caught a faint patronizing note in the tone, "but her call is urgent."

"Huh. Right. Well, I guess - Come on, best friend, high sister wants as we should get our visit on." He turned and beckoned to Karkat, who just stared at him.

"You want me to come? Ga - um, Makara," fuck that felt wrong to say, "I don't think the Rubellite wants to see _me_."

"Don't much care, Vantas bro," Gamzee said, smiling at him. "Ain't about to let you out my sight more than seconds at a time just yet. My pinkblooded sis wants to argue at me about it, she can sing in my face what she's all to holding against my moirail."

The sudden outbreak of gasps and whispers outside the door did not escape Karkat, who could feel himself blushing, fuck it all. He took a deep breath. "All right, you crackpanned idiot, I'm not going to waste my time arguing, but we're not leaving yet."

Gamzee gaped at him. "But bro, he says it's motherfucking urgent - "

"And you're not going to see her looking like you just fell out of your wheel," Karkat said firmly. "I'm not letting you disgrace yourself and insult our high ruler like that. She'll see you dressed to fucking honor her, not half-naked and disheveled - no, don't even argue with me. You, out," he said to the highbloods crowding around the doors.

There was an outraged murmuring and the amethyst gave him a look of utter disdain, but Gamzee shrugged and waved at the doors and they slammed shut, the closest demons jerking back just in time.  "Well, my palest half, what's all in your mind?"

Without the disapproving gaze of highbloods on him, it was easier to glance over Gamzee and decide what to do first.  "Get me a brush and I'll fix your hair, you find some clothes suitable for a high occasion like this.  And your best jewelry.  Oh, and we've got to change your paint, you fucking can't still be wearing yesternight's."

"Aw, bro, I gotta put all that stuff up and on me now?"

"Yes, bulgeknot, you do.  What part of called before the Incandesce did you miss?  Who dressed you the last time she called for you?"

"Never got her call on for me before," Gamzee said, rummaging through a pile to emerge with an ebony handled brush. "Occasions there's been where I got my visit at her before, but all for the holy nights and rituals as needed such. Never as what might be a personal sort of thing."

"She never - oh," Karkat said.  Well.  Fuck.  His tail twitched nervously against his leg as he pushed Gamzee down on the nearest pile to start in on his hair.  She couldn't have found out about him already and be angry Gamzee would take a mutantblood for his moirail, that wouldn't - Okay, she couldn't have found out so quickly, first of all, and if she somehow had, it would totally not warrant calling Gamzee down to see her insanely fucking early like this.  She'd probably just have Karkat killed or something, send Gamzee a reproving note maybe.   This absolutely was most likely about important ruler business and nothing to do with Karkat.  Getting full of yourself, fuckass, he thought.  The Rubellite doesn't even know you exist, thank the fucking snakes.

Gamzee was wiping the paint off his face with a rag in quick, practiced motions.  Done, he lifted a hand and two little pots soared over from a pile by the wall.  "Gonna have to wait til you're at an end, bro," he said.  "Can't get it on smooth while you're all to pulling this way and that."

"Shit," Karkat said, freezing.  "I'm so fucking bad at this, did I hurt you?  I didn't mean to, should I let - "

"Nah, my brother," Gamzee laughed, "ain't no trouble, tiny little tuggy pains like that.  You're a motherfucking sight better at it than me.  Just chill your little tail and I'll wait me a while."

"No, we don't have time for you to wait," Karkat said, starting to brush again faster.  "If you can't put your paint on yet, get your clothes and jewelry ready.  Oh, and should you eat something before we go?"

Gamzee laughed again.  "Best friend, we're all at heading to see my fine rubellite sister down in her airiest throne room.  Air there is to breathe, and space to stand as is free of flame, but open magma's by that very place.  No point in wasting time to feed at a heat vent when we're both to be nearest thing to cooked by the time we leave there.  Palebro, you never had your fullness on before like you will."

"Oh," Karkat said.  Of course, that made sense, past him was a fucking moron not to have figured that out.  He brushed more vigorously to make up for it. "Gamzee, clothes!"

"Yeah, best friend, I'm up and on it. Uhh, so, like, ritual dress, maybe?"

Karkat sighed. "If those are the fanciest clothes you've got, then yes. All right, done," he said, putting down the brush. Gamzee's hair was a fluffy mane now instead of a wild tangle; not the best job of styling, but at least he looked like someone gave a fuck about his appearance. "Come on, show me what you've got."

"Right." Gamzee raised a hand and several piles shook themselves and came apart, glittering cloth shifting out from underneath to rise into the air and hang there.

"Do your paint while I look at these," Karkat ordered. He felt a pang - he'd wanted to be the one to take the old paint off, had expected to have the time to learn how to put the right pattern on, even. He'd looked forward to it, his hands moving over his moirail's face, delicate and careful around the eyes, but Gamzee could do it fast and smooth and there was no time.

He inspected the proffered garments carefully and picked out a heavily beaded shirt with Gamzee's sign on it, (curling his left hand into a loose fist around the secret echo on his palm), embroidered pants, and a sparkling silver scarf to go at his waist. While Gamzee finished the pale undercoat of new facepaint, Karkat tied the shirt over his shoulders, criss-crossed between his wings. Then he tugged the greater demon to his feet and dragged off the beaded pants from the fire dance, being careful of Gamzee's tail. It brought a sting of regret that his first time seeing his moirail naked and vulnerable wasn't more romantic, but this was washed away by the frenzy of _hurry hurry hurry the Rubellite oh **fuck**_.

Gamzee cooperatively stepped out of the pants legs and into the new pair, tail and wings shifting to keep his balance. He hadn't stopped applying his paint, and the dark pattern over top was almost done. Karkat's diamond warmed and swelled in his thorax at how easy it was, working together like this toward a single goal. Most moirails took perigees to sync up this flawlessly, but this was different. (Maybe serendipity was like that.)

He got the pants up Gamzee's ridiculous lengths of leg and fastened, tied the scarf around his waist, fiddled with the drape of it for a moment and forced himself to move on. "Jewelry."

"Yeah, bro, but do we gotta get our hurry on so hard?"

" _Yes_ , Gamzee, we do! You showing up with a mutant moirail is going to be bad enough, but if we make the Rubellite wait, do you have the slightest fucking notion exactly _how badly_ this could - "

"Shoosh, bro," Gamzee said gently, patting his cheek, and Karkat's breath hitched with how good it felt. He leaned into it just a little, and Gamzee stooped to kiss the tip of one horn. Karkat sort of dissolved, smiling helplessly and chirring as the anxiety knotting his digestion sack faded somewhat. "There now, my miracle diamond brother, breathe easy with that peace up in you. We got the speed at us already, don't fret." He bent to set the paint pots down in the pile, then looked around.

A glinting pile by one wall shrugged itself into the air and spread out - ear cuffs, rings, tail wraps, necklaces, anklets, all jeweled in highblood colors. Karkat looked them over and picked out a fine pectoral piece of amethysts and pink rubies, gold horn caps and a selection of the rest, then helped get it all on. He had to swallow when Gamzee knelt and bent his head for Karkat to fasten the chain of the pectoral, and brushed fingertips over the exposed back of his neck when he finished.

"Pale for you," he said softly.

"Pale as quartz, brother," Gamzee murmured back, and stood to face him. He looked magnificent, every inch the Highest ready for a visit of state. Karkat had been careful to leave anything obviously associated with specific rites and rituals aside, and hoped he hadn't mistakenly included anything with some hidden meaning only highbloods would know. He hoped Gamzee would've noticed and stopped him.

Gamzee was frowning, mildly dismayed. "But bro, you can't be all to visiting my rubellite sis looking like that! Here you've gotten me all over finery and shine, but you ain't got a shirt, nor gem to your name!"

"I don't need - I'm not - " He stopped and sighed. "I probably shouldn't come at all, Gamzee. Not only am I mutant lowblood trash, I'm wingripped as well. Broken. I'm not fit to face her."

Gamzee just stared at him for a moment, face unreadable behind the delicate curves and angles of his paint pattern. "If any other said such a thing," he said quietly, "I'd show that one a world of motherfucking hurt. I'd be all manner of appreciative if you never let such a thing out your mouth again, palebro. Now, mine you are, and bring you I will, even unto her throne, unless you deny me. Do you now?"

"D-deny you?" Karkat said faintly, closing his left hand protectively. Deny him as a moirail, lose him already - was this a threat, an ultimatum?

Gamzee sighed. "If you say no. You get your refusal at it, bro, I won't push you. You can stay here and wait for me. But I, I'd like you with me, if was up on me to decide it."

Karkat sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, so relieved his knees turned weak.

"Brother?" A big hand landed over his horns and stroked gently. "Ain't meaning you to be all in your worry, if you really don't want - "

"No, I, it's okay, I'll go," Karkat said. He stepped into Gamzee and pressed his face up against his chest for just a brief, fortifying minute. Gamzee's wings snapped closed around him and for a second they were alone together in the dimmed light. Then Gamzee reluctantly let him go and Karkat pushed away so he could think clearly. "Okay, a shirt - "

"Here, bro," Gamzee said, flicking a bundle of cloth at him. "Gonna need you some pants as ain't in tatters just yet, too. Should fit, didn't have my last growth on when I wore them."

The shirt was silky, beaded around the hem, and the pants were lightly embroidered in iolite purple, but they were probably the least ornate clothing Gamzee owned, so Karkat just nodded tightly, kicking off his ragged red pants. By the time he'd finished dragging on the other pair, Gamzee was trying to put horn caps on him, which did not fit on blunt, stubby horns. Karkat batted him away.

"No! Gamzee, I don't need jewelry, I'm a lowblood, I'm already dressed above my rank!"

"In my clothes, which look motherfucking fine on you, palebro," Gamzee said serenely, stepping behind him to tie the shirt for him. "And as you're all at being my moirail, my colors are suited to you and my gems, too. How's this up and look?" He slid a necklace around Karkat's neck, turned him to look at it and nodded, smiling. "There. Suits, see?"

Karkat looked down and gaped. Most of the stones in the necklace were the usual high colors; lapis, sapphire, iolite and tanzanite, amethyst, rubellite and pink ruby - but the central piece was polished coral, in bright, off-spectrum red. Coral was highly prized, since venturing into the sea was incredibly dangerous for demons, even in the warm, shallow water around the island, but it was usually a safer sort of orangey pink. Granted, there was an acceptable reason to have red in a necklace belonging to the Highest: It was clearly meant to represent earthblood. But. "Holy fuck, Gamzee - "

His palemate raised a hand and put a finger to Karkat's lips. "Magma in your veins, bro," he said softly, and his eyes weren't mild and vague now but sharp, focused. "A holy fucking being. I don't aim to forget."

Swallowing hard, Karkat nodded. Maybe the Incandesce would kill him, maybe she wouldn't. "All right. Let's go."

When the doors opened, they interrupted the hissing conversation going on outside. " - take him an _hour_ to get ready, and her command - " the amethyst was in the midst of growling at a sullen iolite, before they all turned in startlement. Karkat was deeply pleased to see the flame-dweller's jaw drop as he looked Gamzee up and down.

"Hi-Highest," he said. "That was - admirably expedient, uh." - For how unexpectedly ready you look to appear before the Rubellite, Karkat read on his face, and felt a little of his own tension ease. "Are you prepared to go?"

"Yeah, motherfucker," Gamzee said cheerfully, "let's get to visiting my sister what wants me so early in the night."

By now, Karkat was resigned to it when Gamzee picked him up and took off. (He was of course not secretly pleased in any way.)

They went through halls Karkat had never seen before, deep in private highblood territory, and wound slowly downward. The amethyst led the way, streaking through the air in a showy ball of fire that was a stupid waste of maja, although as high on the spectrum as he was he could obviously spare it, which was half the point. Karkat was ready to bite him in the fins by the time they arrived. Lacking wings wasn't a good excuse to be an arrogant douchebag, especially when you could breathe molten rock to make up for it.

The air in the throne chamber was hotter than Karkat had ever felt in his life, probably due to the small pool of magma off by one wall, which he guessed was the passage to the network of submerged channels flame-dwellers lived in. It was a large space filled with amethysts, iolites, and a few sapphires, all richly dressed, most of whom were standing in small groups murmuring more quietly than Karkat had known highbloods could speak. Probably this was due to the fact that on her throne, the Incandesce was visibly smoldering with anger.

There were no adults present, probably because it was too early for them to have come down from the upper caverns, and Gamzee's sleeping ancestor was the highest-blooded adult in the colony; there were no grown flame-dwellers. Karkat's personal bet was that all the adult amethysts had it too cozy under the rubellite Condesce to care about war or peace, so none had joined the exodus.

Gamzee set Karkat on his feet and steadied him as he swayed. "You all right, best bro?" he said, voice quiet enough to not carry. "You need it, I can be at setting up a heat filter for you, keep it down to what you can abide."

Karkat took a deep breath of the blazingly hot, dry air, shivered once, and abruptly relaxed. The heat was melting the tension out of his muscles at the same time that it was nourishing him, and it felt so good he was almost giddy. "No, I'm good, I'm fine," he said, aware that a dreamy smile was spreading over his face and not minding in the least.

"Oh." Gamzee looked startled, but grinned briefly back. He had clearly picked up on the Rubellite's mood and was concerned. Karkat knew he himself should be joining in the general anxiety, but he couldn't remember feeling this way before in his life and for once worry wouldn't come. "All right, palebro, stand where you like, I'll speak to my rubellite sister."

The demon who'd led them here strode up to the throne and bowed before the slender shape sitting there, Gamzee following more slowly. "Gracious Incandesce, the Highest attends you."

The Rubellite's fins were flicking agitatedly, the jewels in them tangling in flyaway strands of her long hair until she impatiently brushed it all back. Gold glinted at her wrists, neck, and ankles, and her circlet was set with a massive red-purple rubellite. She wore a gauzy dress in shades of pink, purple and blue, and light sparked off it with her every move as though it was sown with gold dust or tiny crystals.

Gamzee's wings flared as he bowed, straightened, and kept his big squawk-gaper shut for once, waiting for her to speak first.

"Makara," she said, and the subharmonics in her voice made Karkat flinch a little, even in his current blissful daze. Her narrow eyes were fixed on Gamzee, whose wings folded in tightly in response, and her claws dug at the smooth arms of her marble throne. "I would hate to vent at someone who doesn't deserve it, but rhyolite now it's tuff not to just erupt. I am sear-iously this close to boiling point."

"You are looking all sorts of volcanic, sis," Gamzee said cautiously. "Maybe slow your fumarole and tell me what you're burning over, huh?"

"Hah! Good one." She relaxed a little, shot him a grin before sobering again. "I ember-stand our people don't mingle much, and information not getting through is maar about a general laccolith of communication than deliberate omission, but I caldera you here because it is absolutely essential I know what happens in my colony, especially when it could have flare-y dangerous effects! It took _three nights_ for me to find out about this, and that I was igneous-rant for that long - "

"Whoa, pink sis, you ain't yet up and told me anything."

"You really don't know the scoria?" The rumble and warp in her voice dropped away in surprise.

"Nah, sister, don't know nothing. Be magma-nimous and drop a brother a clue." Karkat smiled fondly down at his toes before he caught himself - that one had been clever, he was impressed with his palemate. ( _His_ palemate!) ...Holy fuck, everything felt amazing.

The pun won a giggle, and the Incandesce tilted her head to one side and smiled. "Well, then, I'll make it quick. Pumice me you didn't know about the angel."

Gamzee's tail lashed and his wings went loose in startlement. "What motherfucking angel?"

Karkat wondered which one she was talking about, John, Jade, or Dave? Probably not Roxy, she'd seemed okay, though he'd only met her briefly. Then his head cleared of the pleasure daze enough to realize that this had nothing to do with him, the Rubellite had yet to mention the moirail thing, so she probably didn't mean any of his angels. Or at least, not because they were his. Had she found out - oh fuck. _Strider_.

"Oh good!" she exclaimed. "I dec-lahar, I would've kicked your ash otherwise! There was an angel spying around in the outskirts three nights ago."

Oh, _fuck_.

"Motherfuck! No fucking joke?"

"Of course not! When is the last time I lied tuya? My informant says the angel got badly injured, but he didn't know how." She took off one of her bracelets and began playing with it, staring off to one side, and her voice quieted. "I know you see the problem, I won't subject you to a diatreme. If the angels dacite we attacked him, our peace truce could vaporize like rain on a lava flow. And if they're cindering people to spy on us already, they could be just looking for an excuse. This could guyot bad fast."

"Fuck! _Fuck!_ " Gamzee wheeled to one side, then the other, obviously wanting to pace but held by his agitation. Karkat glimpsed his wild face in profile before he turned back to the throne, and wished he could shoosh him, but this was not the time and place. "Where'd the feathery fucker get to, can we get our reason on with him?"

The Rubellite threw her hands in the air with a clatter of bracelets, exasperated. "'A'a, nobody has been able to find him! Which is, I granite, why it took so long for anyone to tell me. When the rumors started, they laughed and went to look for this mafic-al angel and found nothing, so everyone assumed it was felsic information. It was only when my pahoehoe found a half-eaten piece of feathered wing there andesite it was supposed to have happened that he realized it was true."

Involuntarily Karkat shuddered.

"Andesite?" Gamzee said, sounding puzzled.

"Oh, should I ar-reticulite my words maar carefully? On the site, Makara." She flicked her fins and huffed in annoyance.

"Oh, right. I mean, rhyolite. So, is he dead? Ain't no need to worry the rest'll find out what - oh. Blame'd come right back square at us anyway."

"Especially if they're looking for a reason to attack, they'd lava to lay the fault on us. And we never found a body, so we're assuming he blew back to his tree. So, do you have any ignimbrite ideas? I value your obsidian."

Gamzee raked a hand through his hair and sort of paused a second, Karkat guessed in surprise when his fingers didn't catch in tangles, because he did it again a little slower. "Fucked if I know, sis. We got any kind of idea about us of what their numbers are up at?"

"'A'a, of course not. One of our guiding colony rules has always been that thermae be no contact between our colony and theirs."

Funny, he'd never really thought of it as a rule so much as common sense. Don't go bother our historical enemies, they'll probably kill you on sight, that sort of thing (however wrong common sense had turned out to be).

"Nor any notion how many of them would get their fight on, or by what manner, or - _fuck!_ " Gamzee's wings mantled and his voice was starting to warp deep and jagged. He was obviously distressed, and the Incandesce as well, if less obviously, both of them so afraid of a war they didn't know how to fight that they weren't even noticing the assumption all the rest was based on. The surge of annoyed pity for Gamzee made sense, but that it extended to the Incandesce took Karkat by surprise.

"He wasn't spying, no one sent him!" he said in exasperation before he realized he was speaking out loud. The entire chamber turned to look at him, half a hundred appalled and contemptuous highblood faces, and he swallowed hard and dropped his chin, stubbornly refusing to give way. Gamzee was gaping at him like Karkat had declared himself the Rubellite's heir, and the Rubellite herself was frowning. "The angels aren't looking for a fight, okay?" he finished awkwardly.

"Makara," Her Incandescence said, "who is your friend, who so coulee speaks in my council uninvited?"

Gamzee grinned and glanced back at her, and - fuck, was he blushing? Karkat's thorax was suddenly filled with warm, fluffy feathers like a fucking angel orgy. "Aw, he's all at being my new moirail, sister, so I'd trust at what he says."

"Oh!" Her eyes rounded and then she clapped her hands and smiled, apparently delighted. "Well, conflagrations to you, then!" she told Gamzee. "That's so igniting!" Why was she - oh. Karkat was far enough from the throne that she might not be able to see his eyes, and he was wearing Gamzee's purple-embroidered pants, so she probably thought he was iolite. A wingless iolite. Which he didn't think there was one, but it wasn't like he personally knew every demon. "In that case, I won't have him ejecta-d. Explain yourself, pahoehoe," she told Karkat. "How do you know such s-tuff?"

Karkat was aware his tail was coiling stealthily around his own leg, clueless that this would hardly keep it out of danger, and he knew exactly how much of a stunted, tailsucking idiot it made him look. He could feel himself flushing under her expectant gaze, and so much for passing for iolite. He dropped his eyes to the ground and said roughly, "That angel's my kismesis."

There was a breath of stunned silence and then the place exploded into babble, hissed whispers rising like steam from fissures. When he braced himself and looked up, Gamzee was frowning at him, looking stunned and hurt. He should've been told first, but there'd been no time between becoming moirails for real and now. The Rubellite raised a hand, astonished eyes narrowing with irritation, and got relative quiet again.

"So what, he dropped down a vent into your lapilli and it was sear-endipity? With someone not even of our kind? Next you'll tell me he didn't lose a wing, his feathers were just molten. Explain maar-ginally _better_."

It was strange to be terrified for his life at the same time that his entire body was more full of lazy pleasure than it'd been even after sex. His pusher was pounding, his breath catching in his windchute, and his hands were tingling like they meant to go numb, and it almost felt _good_. He felt strong, alive, filled with energy, and even being scared out of his fucking pan was weirdly pleasurable. He was still scared out of his fucking pan, though. If he told the complete truth, he'd probably get drained or worse on the spot, and then Gamzee would be out a moirail and the angels would never know what happened.

"I go Above sometimes," he said. "So I was in the desert and I ran into an angel. It's - the kismesis thing, it's not official yet, but when he came down here, he might have been looking for me." All true statements, separately. Strider had been looking for information _about_ Karkat more than Karkat himself, and Karkat hadn't met him until he was already bleeding in the outskirts, near dawn. And his meeting with John in the desert had been the next night, not previous.

"You met an angel," the Incandesce said flatly, "and both of you instantly combusted in a blaze of non-plutonic hatred."

Karkat looked down. "I don't think he really understands kismesissitude," he admitted. "But he still seemed pretty jet and he's really f - uh, really annoying." Fuck, just remembering that monotone drawl was enough to piss him off.

Another outburst of hissing and muttering swept through the chamber, but this time she didn't cut it off right away. When he dared to look at her again, her frown made him swallow.

"Well, whether or not you could have found someone mofette to be your spade, someone who wouldn't require that you blow the rules of this colony to dust, the rules that were established to preserve the safety of you and everyone else... Where is he now?"

"Back in his tree, with his clade." Karkat chewed on his lip a second. "I didn't know angels came to the desert, it's on the other side of the island from them. I, uh, I sear-iously didn't mean for any of this to happen, your Incandescence." He hadn't known if they caught him in their tree they'd take an interest in him instead of just killing him, hadn't known Strider would track him when he left and search as long as it took to find the way Down. Hadn't meant him to get hurt, or anyone else to find out about it and start thinking about war. Fuck, past Karkat should have been killed by the ogres that took his wings, everyone would be better off. He dropped his head, cheeks hot with shame. "I am so, so fucking sorry."

She looked more thoughtful than angry when he looked up, so he'd at least done something right, briefly. "I suppose it's flare to say you haven't actually done anything wrong, since it certainly wasn't your original intention to ash-tablish relations with an angel. And however provoking I find your foolish behavior, your au-dacite-ty is giving us valuable information. So I forgive you, cinnabar. Just be careful-lahar from now on."

"Yes, Incandescence." Cinnabar, okay, she knew he was red but hadn't noticed the off-spectrum part, that was good. Fuck. Somehow he'd successfully eased the situation and mollified her, and the last thing he wanted to do was make her angry at him again. Unfortunately, an important detail had been left out of her earlier summary of circumstances as he knew them, and as the ruler, she needed to know. And maybe Strider deserved that the truth be known, too, even if he was an infuriating bulgelicker who couldn't make sense even if his tall, skinny life depended on it.

"So you say the angels aren't at flashpoint, they don't want war? They won't try tephra-ame us for murder or treaty-breaking, even with him maimed?"

"That's, um, rhyolite," he tried, and was rewarded with a further softening of her expression. "They don't want to fight us at all. But... there is a problem." He drew a deep breath as returning tension and displeasure thickened the air around him. "While he was down here, he followed someone for a while, out of sight, as far as he knew, but he's a crackpanned moron, so who fucking knows. Whoever it was, they threw a confusion spell on him, which is why he blundered straight into a group of ogres and got hurt like that." Another breath, although he felt like he was choking. "And he said," he flicked a glance at Gamzee, who probably wouldn't take this well, "he couldn't see any color in the wings, but the demon was wearing purple."

Uproar. Highbloods were snarling in outrage, hissing threats at him for daring to accuse his betters, and the crowd was closing in around him. He couldn't see Gamzee or the Rubellite anymore, they were blocked by angry faces and a few sets of mantling wings from the non-amethysts.

"Be _still!_ " a high voice cracked out like a rockface splitting, sounding above the babble, and the crowd parted again fast. The Rubellite looked furious, but to Karkat's relief she was staring around at the highbloods, not at him. Gamzee looked equally pissed, wings mantled at the crowd. "Unless one of you can give me the same useful information as this pahoehoe, you can keep your obsidians to yourself. We are discussing matters of some magma-tude, if you hadn't noticed. Do not vent-ture to test my patience again."

Karkat breathed out silently, and flicked his tail to get it to uncoil. He straightened as the Rubellite turned to him again.

"That caps it, then, the ash is in the wind. How can you say it's all rhyolite when they have evidence of attempted murder?"

"I wouldn't say that," Karkat argued. "I mean, as a murder attempt it was ...pretty laccolith-ter, really."

The Incandesce gaped at him and then giggled in delight. "Oh, that's good! But be sear-ious now."

"Okay. They don't want war, so they're probably not looking for the high ground, but if we want to be safe," he took a bracing breath and said it, "we should probably send someone with a formal apology."

Growls of dissent from around the chamber. "They should apologize to us!" someone said above the rest. "Coming sneaking down here - "

"Looking to surprise a kismesis, bulgelicker!" Karkat snapped back. "He wasn't trying to start hostilities! He's just a fucking dumbass!"

"Quiet!" the Rubellite said in annoyance. "If you all erupt every time - "

"Your pardon, Incandesce," said a deep voice from the doorway, and Karkat turned to see -

Fuck, adults were big this close.

A massive sapphire towered over the nearest part of the crowd, and even calm, the subsonic rumble in his voice was notable. Behind him an ancient jade stepped through the door, her wings and skin dark with age.

"Whoa, fuck," Gamzee muttered somewhere behind Karkat.

"Having heard of an incident with an injured angel," the vast blueblood said, "I took the liberty of waking the Dolorosa. She is the one who successfully spoke with the angels and secured the terms of our truce when we first arrived here nine sweeps ago. As it seems likely we shall wish to speak to them again now, I thought it wise to secure her assistance."

"You may approach," the Rubellite said, and Karkat hastily stepped out of the way and kept his head down as he backed into the crowd. They might know he was low, but so long as they didn't see his eyes no one would realize how low.

"I notice no one bothered to wake me before now, despite knowing full well I never meant to sleep so long," the jade said in an annoyed undertone as they passed Karkat.

"My apologies," the sapphire rumbled, not as successfully quiet.

"Expatriate," said the Rubellite when they stopped before the throne, "how did news of this already come tuya?"

"The Psionic alerted me, Your Incandescence," the sapphire replied. "You must be aware that he has access to whatever information passes through our Web, as the entire Webwork is of his making and keeping."

"Huh! So his in-vent-tion serves him first of all, does it? I was not aware."

"Incandescence," the deep voice sounded slightly flustered, "that representation is not entirely what I would consider to accurately reflect his intentions - "

"Oh, it's all rhyolite," she said, sighing a little with exasperation, "I won't magma-fy this all out-tuff proportion and accuse him of plotting against me! I'm not my blasted Ancestor. But next time I trust he will cinder the message to me as well."

Karkat had been edging through the crowd as this conversation progressed, and was now near the break in the stone floor where the magma was visible not far below. He was bewildered by the fact that despite the heat in the whole throne block being greater than he'd ever felt before, it still felt wonderful. The puzzlement had drawn him across the chamber, testing, and now he was staring down at molten rock. Even now that it was blasting him in the face, the heat felt so good he had to struggle not to start chirring.

"Insolent little piece of shit," someone hissed behind him and as he turned he felt a shove and suddenly he was falling.

There was time for one blinding instant of terror - _I'm going to die **burning**_ \- before he hit the magma.   He screamed and flailed, got magma in his mouth and stopped screaming to spit it out. It tasted sort of minerally sharp and was mud-thick and gritty against his tongue and teeth. It was also really hot, and it took him a moment of gasping and thrashing and waiting to die as shouting rose around him before he realized; he could taste it, he still had a tongue. He could feel the heat on all his skin, feel the fierceness of it beating against his eyes, pressing across the sensitive skin of his tail, but it was bearable. Actually, the main danger facing him at present seemed to be drowning if he sank much farther.

Yelling started above him as he clawed for the edge of the rock, struggling to keep his head above the surface.

" - the Highest's moirail, _grab_ him - "

" - point, he's a _lowblood_ , he's _dead_ already!"

"He's not dead, look at him!"

"How the fuck - "

"He has to be dead, it's just muscle twitches - "

"Holy _shit_."

A hand reached down and Karkat looked up suspiciously before taking it, but the amethyst offering it looked almost scared, grey eyes wide on his face.   Satisfied he wasn't going to get dumped back in deeper, Karkat grabbed her hand and scrabbled his way up on solid rock again.

Oh, fucking shit, his clothes had burned off, all he had on was a thin coat of cooling magma. That was an unexpected humiliation -

And then a rising howl grabbed his attention and riveted it.

" - _if any fucker has_ KILLED MY MOTHERFUCKING MOIRAIL - " Gamzee was in the air hovering above the crowd, but his orange-shading eyes didn't find Karkat at first. "I will RIP THEIR motherfucking WINGS OFF, tear EVERY CALIBORN-CURSED LIMB from - "

Karkat waved both hands over his head and yelled at the top of his considerable volume to cut through the bellowing. " _Makara_ , you bulgerotted panwaste, I'm _right here!_ "

Gamzee slammed into the floor in front of him in a barely controlled landing, tail lashing, all big terrified eyes and reaching hands. Karkat stepped forward to put palm to face, then suddenly jerked away, staring at his hands covered in cooling molten rock. "Wait, don't touch me, you could burn yourself!"

"Bro?" Gamzee said, voice wavering. One big hand stretched out, brushing fingertips across Karkat's forehead, well above the splash line. "Bro, you're ALL AT LIVING STILL, here getting your breathe on like it AIN'T NO THING!"

"Yes, I - I'm fine," he had to touch him but he was covered in magma, Gamzee was distressed, he had to calm him down, but he would burn him -

"And what kind of miracle is it, bro, that you AIN'T BURNT AND SCALDED ALL TO CHAR? Here I thought you was DEAD AS DEAD COULD BE because some little FLAME-HATCHED SHIT up and pitched you where THEY THOUGHT YOU'D GET YOUR FRYING ON - "

"Shoosh!" Karkat snapped, smacking his hands against each other as if the stuff would just brush off, fucking stupid - Maja rippled through him and the layer of half-cool magma peeled away from his body and fell to the ground like lumps of clay, leaving his skin bare.

...Holy shit. That had never happened before, using maja involuntarily like that. How the fuck had he - No, not now, think about it later.

He didn't trust his own judgement of heat at all, he had no idea if his own skin was a normal temperature or magma-hot, but Gamzee had touched him without flinching. Cautiously, he touched a fingertip to his moirail's face. Instead of wincing away, Gamzee shuddered and stepped into him, big hands hard on his back, wings wrapping close around him.

Karkat sighed and put his arms around Gamzee in turn. "Shoosh, you disaster," he said as soothingly as he could.

" - eyes are all wrong," someone was muttering nearby.

"Mutant - is that why - "

" - Shouldn't have been able to survive that - "

Karkat stopped listening. Held close, hidden from staring eyes by his moirail's wings, the terror coiling his muscles began to ease away. By the quivery feeling in his abdomen, he should be starting to shake right now, but that sensation of intense, lazy pleasure persisted despite the abrupt swim of death and seemed to be counteracting the let-down reaction. He shivered once, a full-body tremor, and then mostly relaxed.

When he looked up, Gamzee's eyes were closed. Karkat reached up to stroke his face and his eyes snapped open, still orange around the edges. "Shoosh," Karkat said firmly, papping. "I'm totally fine and untouched, as you can see, so don't fucking flip out, tailsucker."

"Don't flip, when you were all but A BREATH AWAY FROM MOTHERFUCKING DYING?" Gamzee's breath shuddered out, hissed in again. The overtones of his voice juddered and whined, a soft rattling growl rising and falling underneath.

"That's what I said, do not flip." Karkat leaned in close, speaking into Gamzee's shirt, dropping his voice until his moirail had to settle a little just to hear him and no one else should be able to. "I'm okay, and I'm so pale for you, I'd... kind of like to spend the rest of the night like this. Wrapped in your wings, safe." Fuck, what was he even saying? His face was so hot, this was completely _shameless_ but he had to get through to him - "We should make a date of it when you're free again, maybe." He looked up, hand still steadily stroking Gamzee's face, and it was working, his eyes were fading back to yellow. "But you've got things to do right now, you have to be the Highest, not just my moirail. So pull yourself together and stop growling."

Abashed, Gamzee swallowed a last angry rattle, though he still looked perturbed. "Bro," he said much more quietly, "how'd you make it through that killing heat? Ain't what lowbloods are like to be known for. You got any notion at that?"

"No, I have no fucking idea. Look, we can talk about it later, right?"

Abrupt silence fell around them in a chorus of gasps.

"Makara!" the Incandesce said, from very near by.

Karkat almost choked and batted at Gamzee to fold his wings back so Karkat could see. The Incandesce was standing there, arms folded and fins flared, looking annoyed and concerned. Her eyebrows went up as she saw him.

"Makara, I hate tephra-ase this like a prude, but get your pahoehoe covered - " Her purple-rosy eyes went round as she stopped dead, then took a quick step forward to peer into Karkat's face.

He went rigid. Shit, here it all went. She was going to blow her top and kill him for daring to touch the Highest with his filthy mutant prongs -

She was smiling, lips parted in wonder as she stared at his eyes, her fins waving gently so the gems piercing them winked and sparked. "How pretty! Like glowing embers, I lava it! More like cuprite than cinnabar, really. All filled in, I didn't notice before - you must be from my hatching, one of the twelve eldest, rhyolite?"

Karkat nodded dumbly.

"I'm so glad you fell in my lapilli, I want to get to know my hatchmates better! I'll have to talk tuya about it later, though. First, did you really take a swim just now?"

Karkat swallowed and nodded again.

"On purpose? Did you know, is this a regu-lahar thing for you?"

"No! No. Someone pushed me," he said. "I felt it." He looked around at the many staring faces. "And I may not know who it was, but guess what, fucker, touch me again and I'll pull your guts out your ass until you can use them in a recreational cord-leaping game!" On second thought, that was probably not the appropriate way to speak with the Rubelliteblood standing right there, fuck.

She just grinned sharply and shrugged, though. "Flare enough, I guess! Thermae be _several_ good reasons to leave you alone." She glanced around at the crowd, smile cooling. "Two of them are me and Makara, of course."

Holy shit, that almost sounded like the Rubellite herself had just put him under her protection. That could not possibly be -

"Anyone who touches my re-maar-kable earthblood hatchmate before I get to know him will find themselves ejecta-ed from the colony. I assure you this is not jocu-lahar-ity."

Holy _shit_. She _had_. That was absolutely what had just happened, wasn't it? He wasn't even hallucinating. _Why?_

"Bro," Gamzee said, "you got this kinda glow on you. You have your knowing on of how that up and happened?"

Karkat blinked and glanced down at his hands, which were not glowing, but his upper arms had a faint luminance to them which intensified into a distinct flickering light just above the skin on his shoulders and thorax. "Uh. I have no idea."

"Pretty!" was the Incandesce's brisk remark. "But we have a crisis to manage now, so someone please lend my hatchmate clothing before all this nakedness kindles inappropriate pale sparks. I pumice I'll remember the favor - thank you, Parvin." A heavy-set amethyst offered a long scarf broad enough to make a good kilt, then took off his shirt as well. His eyes were still grey - seven sweeps at most.

Karkat wrapped the scarf carefully under his tail and around his waist, tucking one end back over his tail to be completely decent. The Incandesce started back to her throne and Gamzee herded Karkat along as he struggled into the shirt.

"Please pardon me," the Incandesce said calmly to the two adults as she sat down again. Gamzee finished tying Karkat's shirt on and stepped up beside him. "These little eruptions of drama do flare up now and again. Now, where had we - "

"Your pardon," the jadeblood said abruptly, staring at Karkat. "Who is this?"

Karkat blinked at her before he remembered to hide his eyes, and saw hers go wide.

"My moirail, full up of miracles," Gamzee said.

"And a hatchmate of myself and the Highest both," the Incandesce added. "Is it rele-vent?"

"No, not at all," the jadeblood said, and smiled, to Karkat's bewilderment and unease. "The Expatriate can speak for me for the moment. I must speak with - Vantas, if I am not mistaken?"

How did she - Karkat nodded. She bowed to the Incandesce, wings flaring close and stylish, then stepped forward, took Karkat by one elbow in a powerful grip, and drew him back toward the door. It was pointless to struggle, but Karkat couldn't help looking back for Gamzee - who was following at his heels. The adult didn't seem to mind when she turned to face Karkat, in fact barely seemed to notice Gamzee was there.  She sank to her knees and Karkat twitched, but she was only putting her face level with his.

"I am the Dolorosa," she said quietly.  "I... knew your Ancestor."

For a moment, Karkat just stared.  Her smile was gone, her face very still, and there was something like pain in the tightness around her eyes.  "Oh," he said inadequately.  "Um.  I thought that was a really long time ago."

"Oh, it was.  I was nearly as young then as you are."

"I didn't know - uh, I thought only highbloods lived that long?"

"Oh, not _that_ long," she said.  "A couple of centuries at best.  And I have refused to sleep as any proper midblood should have by now.  Until now, at least, and that was not my doing -  But this is not what I meant to speak with you about."  Her eyes flicked over his shoulders, his head.  "It must be pleasant to be so well fed."

Was that the source of the persistent sensation of pleasure and fulfillment? "Oh. Uh, yeah, I guess."

"It is my guess that this is no ordinary event for you."

"What, getting shoved in magma or called before the Incandesce? Either way, yeah, you got it."

She smiled slightly. "I meant the privilege of a good meal."

"Oh. Yeah..." How the fuck did she know that? It wasn't like he didn't eat, but sometimes it didn't seem worth it, the difference between before and after the heat vent was so minimal. If he went without for a day or two until he was tired and twitchier than usual, at least he knew he'd notice feeling better after feeding.

"Hmm. I expect you eat with the lowbloods?"

"Of course?" How else would he eat?

"But, you will have noticed, earthblood itself is not too hot for you. Therefore, lowblood rated vents won't be nearly hot enough. To be really well-fed, you need a highblood's level of heat; amethyst or rubellite, for preference. Having been immersed in magma - I'm glad you're well, by the way, he found the lack of gills to be quite trying at times - you've now had a full meal, maybe for the first time ever. Because your system isn't used to this and doesn't know how to handle so much, you're flaring off excess maja, which is the cause of this rather pretty glow."

Too much to take in all at once; all he could manage was, "He?"

"Your Ancestor," she said quietly.

Of course. Her familiarity with another mutant Vantas was how she knew he could withstand magma. (Except that Peaceway had died that way, hadn't he? ...After being drained almost to ash, right, so of course he couldn't survive it by then.) How else would she guess a wingripped mutant needed the same heat as a flame-dweller to get a full meal? (Did that make Karkat some bizarre kind of almost-highblood - ?) No, he couldn't even think about that right now. He glanced at the flickering glow over the skin of his shoulder, twitched in an instinctive attempt to dispel it. Nothing happened. "So it's not harmful or anything?"

"Not in the least," she said. "If you begin expending large amounts of maja, once the level drops somewhat the glow will cease."

"Bro," Gamzee said, "are you telling at me that you were never in your motherfucking life full-fed until this very night?"

Karkat blew out a breath and eyed him. He looked unhappy, purple eyes wide, but probably not about to immediately flip out again if Karkat answered the question. "How the fuck would I have gotten enough when I didn't even know how much I needed?"

"Motherfuck," Gamzee said sadly.

"I should return to speak with the Incandesce," the Dolorosa said, "but if it would suit you, young Vantas, I would speak with you again."

Having no idea what to say, he just nodded. Without another word, she stood and walked back toward the throne. Gamzee put a hand on Karkat's shoulder as they followed.

" - the necessary balance between strength worthy of respect and an openness to negotiation," the Expatriate was saying as they approached. He turned to the Dolorosa. "Beside the number included in our delegation, we must take thought for where we should arrange to meet. Surely we must not meet on their territory, but - "

A sudden yell echoed down the corridor outside the throne block. The Expatriate broke off and wheeled around a split second before a demon came streaking into the chamber dangerously fast, banked in surprise at seeing two adults, and almost fell out of the air. She wore the sash of a colony guard, and she landed hard, folded her wings and bowed already speaking, gasping out her message. "Incandescence - beg your pardon for - unseemly haste - sent to tell you - angels!" She took a breath as the entire place went silent. "A group of angels is at the entrance, asking to speak to someone in authority. They, uh, they say they wish to discuss the peace treaty."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I wrote the scene with the magma before Homestuck even started updating again. Game Over startled the hell out of me, and then I was like Oh no, everyone will think I totally grabbed this for an AU fix-it! Ah well.


End file.
